I step inside a late 1990s photograph—no, not a Polaroid
with its hallucinated wash of color—
Making my grand entrance in the diaphanous light
navy horizons darker than any of my native cobalt skies
The heat not nearly as thick as the beach air
I am used to, its saltiness a drizzle
Nine dollars ninety-nine buy me a beige t-shirt with a lobster
glued in patchy, resinous, soon-to-be-scaly residues
I will wear it at gym class for an entire school year
until its motto, ROCKPORT MA, will be as dusty
As the grainy memory of this beach day, with its sandy perfection
of powdered sugar and oily afternoon sunlight
Forever steeped in the desire of my very own
late-century golden hour Americana
