October 8, 2019

Eight, forty-two, seventy-five

Yes, of course, take the path to the far cove. Walk the trails called Evergreen and Maple.
Visit the lighthouse and beneath that, the cemetery. By all means, avail yourself
of the lobster at the inn restaurant, caught fresh just that afternoon. Stop at the spot
where the remains of a shipwreck tilt on a salad of seaweed and salty boulders.
Pick the small apples downed from last week’s storm. Buy a postcard, or earrings,
or a hooded sweatshirt in a color you don’t normally wear. Just don’t ignore the sign
push-pinned against the library door, the one that reads “High Stakes Bingo.” If you do,
you’ll miss the sunset that stopped the fourth round, and the huddle moving outside
to see it, and how it felt like every sadness you’d ever carried fell away, and the giddy
return to the game, and how the numbers suddenly sounded like blessings. 8. 42. 75.