I love babies, I really do. They are just so OUT THERE, you know? They can barely talk, they have few teeth and hardly any muscles, but somehow they manage to terrorize the world! J This poem describes an experience with another family’s baby at the beach.
Beach Baby
by Ralph Fletcher
from Have You Been To The Beach Lately?
She’s one year old. One tooth.
A total pudge.
She tries to get out of the water
but her soaked diaper must weigh
ten thousand pounds
so all she can do is
sit.
Later she sees me eating Cheez puffs
and toddles over, standing above me,
a baby so giant she blocks the sun.
“MINE!” she yells.
Her mother hurries over, apologizes,
and hauls her back to their blanket.
Then the baby starts eating sand,
grinning, grinding the grains of sand
with that one tooth.