Riptide
Aug 14 2010


I’m not sure if it’s a riptide
or an undertow.
Or maybe just the surf
that once again failed to move the island
heading back to sea.

Swim parallel to shore, we’re told,
the path of least resistance.
Too late to make a difference, I’m afraid.
Because sometimes
the long way around
gets you back faster.

Or you can float,
looking up at the stars,
your hand
lazily stirring the surface
into phosphorescent light,
like angel dust
like a sorceress casting spells.
There’s the slow undulation of ocean
instead of breaking waves,
an albatross, hovering
who will not touch down for months.
When you’ve run out of fight.
When the neutral buoyancy
of your salty body
is enough.

So when they came
you were calm, resigned —
at sea
surrounded by water
your skin
impossibly soft.
And jolted upright, shocked,
by bright fluorescent lights
the loudly clanging hull
bone-deep cold.

Any longer
you might just have dissolved.
Your molecules diffusing
to the ends of the earth,
an infinite dilution of souls.