Stepping off the sandy shell-sharp shelf into a
current that could bear one north to Peru
in a matter of hours.
Something to dream about, and not always
the nightmare of staring lidless eyes
rising shark-like below one’s thrash and
laughable breast stroke, not always or
only the tremor of being watched from
somewhere in the deep darkness, by
something at home in the abyss.
The lilac jolt and sexual slur of a jellyfish
surfing to its death, the intimate joy of
skinny-dipping beyond the danger buoys,
trunks looped through the rusted knocker-
like hoist.
The waves were like a forest, shuddering down
in a green roar no ear could hear through,
no eye see, only the pelt and pain and breathless
pleasure, the shared fear that each new wave
bore in itself the shadow of a monster.