Today I mailed a postcard
backwards across 54 years
to the knobby kneed 11-year-old
I was in 1966:
Greetings from Jekyll Island
On back, I wrote in blue ink:
Relish your virgin bite
of Original Recipe KFC,
lick the breaded bits
off your fingertips
without apology.
Fill your lungs with briny air,
build a castle six-buckets-tall,
believe:
anything is possible,
fairy tales come true,
stout hearts tame Dragons.
Spend the afternoon
swishing white beach sand
into sand angels
with seashell haloes
and sand dollar eyes.
In the backseat,
on the way home,
close your green eyes,
remember hot
sun on your crown,
ocean thigh high,
sand coated toes.
Savor the only day your mom and dad
– on the brink of their ugly divorce -
forget to fight.
SD Fulton
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