His Family Vacation Remembered (August, 1966, Age 9)

A fence leans westward in the wind
As though cursing the beating from the sea.
What keeps the fence from falling down
On this narrow cape to Provincetown?
 
He finds shells, bleached white from the sun,
Gathered at the feet of weathered posts.
Shells that cower under relentless blows
Of a beating sand that stings his toes.
 
He watches his parents through the fence.
Beaten and battered, his mother still stands.
She cowers and curses all men, and then 
His father grabs her and beats her again.