Territorial Imperatives
By Julia Van Develder
Dec01
Two waspy Watch Hill women
encumbered with enough stuff
to see them through the season
mount the weathered steps to their cabana
without a backward glance.
They think I am one of them
and ask me over-the-shoulder
to get the gate.
I comply and then duck under,
desperate to pee,
and squat between two rolls of dune fence
exposing my indecency.
Into the spaces between their chatter
of Who’s Who in Westerly
the pee rushes and roars
leaving me half-amused
by my own audacity,
half-expecting the hew and cry
of indignant respectability
to hound me from hiding.
Empty at last
I drip dry
zip my fly
and sally forth
onto that mile-long stretch
of sundrenched sand
looking like I own the place
but willing to share, noblesse oblige,
with three fish-belly bathers
two bronze fishermen
and one imperious gull.