Death By Shovel

At lowest tide I visit our town beach. A purposefully unfashionable time after all the poets searching for god have finished walking their dogs. Scrup-fwop, scrup-fwop, can be heard beyond the jetty. I see two lifeguards young and tall, their sun-blond hair in matched French braids. With long handled steel shovels from Parks and Rec  they scoop up jellyfish and casually lob them up to a hot dry death upon the rocks. The oversized orange windbreakers our teen guardians wore urgently proclaiming “RESCUE”. Mercifully, jellyfish can’t read.
by – Doug Mathewson