While those lazy hazy days of summer of which Nat King Cole once sang are wonderful in their way, there is much to be said for the precious moments walking the beach as autumn intimates its arrival. Empty save for a fellow traveler or two, the late September seaside offers a blanker canvas on which to project our thoughts and uninterrupted expanse where treasure lies.

For Nikia Leopold, the treasures are many—not only those she can hold, but the hopes to which they lead.

Image from Flickr via

The Beach Glass

sleeps in my palm,
quietly shining through
its gentle sugar,
pale green of skies
lit by circuses.

To grow beautiful
and useless with the years,
to glow in your hands.

                                    “Beach Glass” appeared in Wider than the Sky, Thirty Years of Poetry East, in spring of 2011. Printed here with the poet’s permission

Nikia Leopold’s poems have been published in The American Scholar, Commonweal, The Southern Review, and Poetry, among other magazines. Her chapbook, Small Pleasures, won the 2012 Blue Light Press Competition, and her full-length manuscript, Swan and Jack-knife, will be published by Main Street Rag in the winter of 2014–15. She lives in Ruxton, Maryland, with her husband and two cats.
Photo by Bruce Leopold.