January 7, 2025

metal detecting with Margaret

Such fools, picking that frigid day to search for who-knows-what.
The beach, rimmed with ice, sand hard as a grimace. All that wind. 
There was a moment when we were still in the car and could have turned
around, gone back to a fireplace and slippers and softer matters. But the buzz
of discovery, however uncertain, was humming between us and around us,
the inlet by the causeway whispering with mythic potential. Margaret listened
on headphones as I dragged the device and read the sensor, and we moved
like astronauts on the planet of our wild hopes, shivering and happy, 
pausing at every beep of the machine as if it were reading our pulses, 
reminding us how alive we still were.