Letter to the Editor

Memories of Revere Beach

Dear Editor:

Her porcelain face and pink stained cheeks a fixture on my dresser—Betty. Her spidery dark lashes awning her blue glass eyes one stuck, half shut. Her new gown is lovely.

Mom’s friend made it, replacing the tired tea-stained one she’d worn for years.

The charred remains of the Cyclone disappeared a few years ago—the last of it all.

The past, both the beaches and theirs, is but an imprint, except for Betty—she was there.

I don’t remember that beach, the one with rides, games, and Betty’s. Mom and Dad do. It’s that beach; Dad let Mom win at ball toss, the game he worked—she won Betty, and he won her.

Hundreds of rising tides, sunrises, and sunsets pass; things change—they do.

The waves wash away the footprints of old, and they disappear in the sand. New ones come for the experience of salty air and calls of gulls. The sands of the little silver moon.

On the porch across from the wall, I sit, waiting for my turn. With heart and hair ready to sit with them—the ones on the other side.

They came in every color, the cars, supped up and bass booming, on display for the parade.

Gold chains and hoops, with hair to the heavens, they marched, the new Betty’s—to attract, to matter, for all to see.

I understood. I soon marched with them—sharp and cool.

Changing faces and changing moons, the tide washed it away. The Betty’s; parades, games, and rides. New Betty’s, new people—time. 

The first swim of the season is always icy and cold. Mom walks down the sand to the water she visits every year. Dad’s path washed away in the waves. Betty’s eyes stay closed now. Her new dress—stained and tired like her.

A sea of new faces comes to the sea that’s ours until the waves wash us away: all to enjoy the experience of the crescent sandy shores–our little silver moon.

Dianne Cabeleus

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