The ocean is framed in my consciousness to remind me there is such a thing as calm, even if inner piece seems two-dimensional and vandals stop in front of it from time to time to pull out knives or switchblades to scrape away swaths of paint or carve it away entirely. Sometimes they succeed entirely. One of the other residents here snatched a package off the neighbor’s front porch. He placed it carefully on our front porch. When I opened the door and caught him, which in turn caught us both unawares, he said he was about to kick it across the street. Since we weren’t on a football field and there was no goalpost in sight, I knew he wasn’t going for an extra point but instead was an art thief posing as a demon to once again snatch my composure. Sure enough, he had cut the canvas from its frame and rolled it up to tuck under his black windbreaker. I saw a corner of it poling up near his collar and proceeded to tell him to stop. A tuba’s notes spewed from my mouth, angry as the fires of hell, only growing hotter the more I tried to speak. Our argument grew fierce. Flames spewed from my mouth. The building caught fire. We stood in the middle of it, oblivious to our impending incineration. He stood immovable as a rock and I continued my brazen cacophony. He took its tide like the boulder he had become and let it crash in wave after wave, the water not even smoothing down his rough edges. He walked away as the building walls collapsed. Only much later, when the smoke had cleared and I saw the empty picture frame on its easel, did I realize his true intent. I’m sitting in the dark, waiting for dawn on the beach with a fresh cup of coffee, listening for waves. Smoke lingers. The sky holds its pungency like a smoker’s clothes, a bitter-smelling ashtray. I reach down for a handful of sand. Bring up ashes, warm to the touch. The tide is low and barely whispers. I plan to stay until it rises and can hear it better, maybe after sunup.

*Title is from John Ashbery’s poem “Litany” in his collection As We Know (Viking Press, 1979).

Bio: Jonathan Yungkans