At Chesapeake Beach, poem by Alarie Tennille (My Perfect Vacation Series)

At Chesapeake Beach
by Alarie Tennille

Six inches down in still-soft
sand, I strike gold!

I pull out a three-footed
candy dish, iridescent
like shells, shimmery tones
of sunset. Not a single crack
or chip. A treasure.

“Carnival Glass,” says Mama,
who always knows things.
“Can I keep it?” I ask,
half expecting Blackbeard
to come snatch it away.

AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE PHOTO: Here I am holding down the fort at Jamestown, Virginia, at about age five. This was likely the same summer I dug up my pirates’ treasure.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My tastes are more expensive now: a perfect vacation would require champagne and a trip to France. As a child in coastal Virginia, perfect vacations were practically in my own backyard. My imagination supplied the adventure. All I needed was a beach and time with Mama and Daddy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She misses the ocean, but loves the writing community she’s found in Kansas City, Missouri. Alarie serves on the Emeritus Board of The Writers Place. She’s the author of a poetry collection, Running Counterclockwise and a chapbook, Spiraling into Control. Alarie’s poems have appeared in numerous journals including Margie, Poetry East, I-70 Review, Midwest Quarterly Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and Southern Women’s Review. Visit her at alariepoet.com.