If Imagination Could Maintain It

If imagination could maintain it, it would be me, ankle deep in cool sand, surrounded by the smell of heat, the smell of seaweed, the dead fish buoyed barely beneath the water beside me.

Your house burnt up, melted the porcelain dolls to the plastic on your floor. Permanently embedding you into the walls, its broken foundation. You were able to move on. Move down the street, with little interest for any sort of feelings of any sort of loss, for the new years, the new things, seashells, garage sales, new ways to scam the government, illness and grandkids.
If not unbearably selfish, I would resurface you here. I would watch you with my back turn spike hot tea, part for shame of the pain in your head, and part for boredom.

If imagination could maintain it, I would want you here, to carry my kids with you, in your tan car, with tan seats, that certain smell ( as i'm the last generation to remember it.) You would take them to the festival of lights, pretending to enter on roller coasters, and they would be the ones to make sure the ones they loved are remembered.