Rescue cans stick in the sand
like safety orange graves. They lean
towards the sea, mercury-still and pricked
with bright-capped swimmers. I’m insubstantial
in the heat, a voice that sweats.
I can almost hear the Wonder
Wheel slow-turning down at Coney, past
the inflatable tentacles of the Aquarium
and the sandblasted trash of the boardwalk.
A man thrashes in the water, waves at me,
then under. The machinery
of my arms, my neck, my throat
does not lurch to save him. A whistle’s
shrill blast—and two men already striding,
already diving out, easy. They lift him
by the elbows and lay him down
on the microplastics and crab shrapnel.
They pound the swimmer’s chest
sir sir please wake up and he sits up
with a long loud gasp and the three of them
laugh. The saved man lifts his strange necklace,
safety orange, and when he puts his lips to it,
the drill is over, but the shrill sound speeds
over the sand, the trill cascading down
miles of beach, lifeguards sounding the signal
from stand to stand, like fires lit on the peaks
of an early empire, a beacon chaining to the dark
continent’s edge, the blind machine of land
and labor that I refuse to belong to, not if
it loves me, not if it offers to save my life.
Quinn is an actor, poet, and new dad. His poems can be read in Pleiades, Fugue, Broadkill, No Dear, and The Journal. He is a Poetry Editor at Bear Review, and received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Quinn’s acting work can be seen on TV, on and off Broadway, and in regional theaters across the country. He lives in Brooklyn.