KHALIL ELAYAN

THE PELICAN WALK

A quiet beach on one end,
a busy road on the other,
the elevated walk
in-between.

This is how we make
our way back,
my daughter and I. 

It is well-made…
It has to be!
To face the storm of wave
and swell. 

To stand firm in flooded swirls.

Or to bake in August afternoons
when it gets hotter as it gets later.

Toes and sand and sandals
make thud, crunch, pop
on the firm wood,  

the sounds of our shuffle.
Dusty shells clink in beach bags
and small pales echo, now empty
of towers after castle-making. 

We are not alone on the walk.

Lizards, some green,
some sand-colored and
red-throated, hop with
incredible bursts, saluting
us with turning heads and
inquisitive,  

rotating eyes.

We pass; they retreat.
And we look back and see
them descend into shadow. 

The sky is birdless
but beautiful, melting
like tangerine sherbet
on a boy’s T-shirt. 

The beach, no longer visible,
I look to left and right at
scarlet flowers with yellow
edges, jutting into
summer scorches.

Then without knowing it,
canopies arc, like folded
hands

and the walk becomes a place
of marsh and palmetto,
moss and magnolia,
bordered by infinite spectrum
of green. 

I love this bit of path,
And so does the child next to me.
It’s as if her breath, exhaled
into the ether is bartered for
by every branch, leaf, and petal 

promising a perch to call her own. 

But we are close to the end
with no pelican overhead.

I must see them, at least
one two or three, targeting
some flapping fish, a half
mile away,  

and he— in his dark,
salty world, oblivious to the end
waiting for him.

__________

KHALIL ELAYAN IS A SENIOR LECTURER OF ENGLISH AT KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY, TEACHING MOSTLY WORLD AND AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE. HIS OTHER INTERESTS INCLUDE GARDENING AND SPENDING TIME IN NATURE ON HIS FARM IN NORTH GEORGIA. KHALIL’S POEMS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED IN A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES MAGAZINE, DIME SHOW REVIEW, ABOUT PLACE JOURNAL, AND THE ESTHETIC APOSTLE. KHALIL HAS ALSO PUBLISHED CREATIVE NONFICTION, WITH HIS MOST RECENT ESSAY APPEARING IN TALKING WRITING, AND HIS LATEST SHORT STORY WAS SHORTLISTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE VINCENT BROTHERS REVIEW ANNUAL SHORT STORY CONTEST.