Their friends were getting a divorce
But would come on the beach trip anyway,
A family life gone sour, 
But deemed worth feigning.
Why did I care, what did I fear?
Surely not that faithlessness
Might by contagion spread,
But what our grandson might deduce:
That friendships could be changed,
Daddies did not all come home,
Pieces of evidence in a five-year-old’s
Take on the world,
Ice-cream cones dropped in the sand,
Sand castles washed to the sea.


© 2007 Robert Demaree

About the Poet:

Robert Demaree is a retired school teacher who lives five months of the year in New Hampshire. He has written a History of Greensboro Day School, a chapbook of poems called New Hampshire Pond, and has had over 200 poems published or accepted by approximately 70 periodicals, including Cold Mountain Review, Elk River Review, Louisiana Review, Louisville Review, Maelstrom, Mobius, Paris/Atlantic, Pegasus, Red River Review and Thorny Locust.

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