Rays

Together you and Juliette spray footprints. Get to the spot, drop boards on sand. Sky dawn pink, she waxes, you yank up your wetsuit, secure hair, which she never does, leaves it down, of course. Plunge into surf, the first shock of cold creeping to skin. Too stunning all around now for that ugly feeling you get.

Sway in the shallows. Three boys, juvies. Rocking, like slow breaths in and out. Suspended ballet in tidal salt. Staying together. Not venturing too far from shore, too deep, where you might make a meal for a twenty-footer. The sun penetrates, undulate like a trance. Breaking waves a rhythm. Below, sand swirling. Always a little hungry. But not too much today. Dive to the floor, rise back up over and over. Very aware.

You lie on the board, breasts and pubic bone sore. So much surfing. Cheek against gritty wax, arms suspended in frigid water, just down shore from not-now-wilding boys, whom you can’t see, though they know about you.

 

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