Effervescence

By Barrie Grenell

It’s 1951.

I’m eight.

The final curtain has fallen on that night’s production of “Pygmalion.”

My dad was Col Pickering.

He has washed off the greasepaint and said his goodbyes.

Driving home over Martha’s Vineyard’s country roads,

The balmy summer midnight is too delicious to ignore.

At Oak Bluffs public beach my parents swim naked.

Effervescence pours off their bodies.

I watch from the sand.