--- H E R M A N   B E A V E R S

Tattooed women negotiate the sand, dragging beach 
chairs to confront the sun.  They don’t squint 
against the glare.   They don’t believe the sun 
requires anything resembling an adjective: its not 
angry, hostile, unrelenting, threatening, 
indifferent, punishing, or
anorexic.   These are woman that deal in plain 
facts, speech as flat as a hand waiting for money.   
The sun always gives up what it promises.   There's 
something about the nature of stars.   By the time 
light reaches us, its history.   So, you see, these 
women, with their tattooes that say "That’s the 
Shit" or "Try me!", that portray a man and a woman 
coiled together like the symbols for yin and yang, 
they know that what's providing the color is a 
force residing in the past tense.   See, they know 
the difference between fusion and radiation: the 
former is a process, the latter is the thing in 
motion.  Ok, so it’s not scientific.   But isn't 
there something to be said for the way these women 
chase the sun till it disappears behind the hotel?  
Then, they gather up their things, throw their 
beach towels over their shoulder, slip back into 
their high heels, pick up the Kierkegaard they've 
been reading and make their way across the cooling 
sand.   And if it looks like they’re smirking or 
rolling their eyes at men like me, with our sagging 
bellies, our crusted feet, the regret stiffening 
our bones,  it is as fleeting as the attention paid 
us by the stars, a matter of times gone by, a 
simple trick of the light.