anchorage

I've given us the nickname "Pangaea." We form, we break up, there may have been several others before Pangaea. We'll drift apart again. Don't be so cynical; it's cyclical. Besides, you always said you were an island and I never learned how to swim.

You've been asked what you would save in case of a fire. We've all answered pictures. There you are, eating your cake with your hands on your first birthday. And now you are six and wearing a funny bonnet. Why do you look so gloomy at 18? And now we've got a collage of our 20s. Pretending with cigarettes and seducing the camera with smoke. Parties, reunions, trips to the tips of mountains, your feet. Hands placed around waists. Maybe something in black and white. Fragments keep us whole, flames keep knocking at our front door. Take what you can.

In an emergency evacuation, separation is inevitable. After detection, decision, alarm, and reaction there is movement. At last at last at last there is movement. We move to an area of refuge. You can use the arms to embrace or shield.

And I get ambitious. And I get acquisitive. And I want to gather the coasts. I want to gather them all like seashells, selfishly stuffing them into my pockets for me me me. But a precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the dynamic nature of tides. There is a spatial zone where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs. You slip through my fingers. You are a ghost.

Is there even evidence of existence? Are there pictures? Fragments offer proof, but what we're offered we do not always accept. Give me your arms; I need to shield myself from the approaching storm.