Had we turned back, it would have been
uphill without mercy. I know I can't.
Could you go get the car? I ask.
So you lock my bike up near the beach.
I think it'll be an hour and a half. Smiling,
you say more like forty-five minutes —
I can do double the speed without you.
Even in August, I feel a chill,
the way you sound. As if
you're speaking for all men.
I head down the beach, helmet in hand.
Kids are there with moms and dads,
senior bathers with skin like leather,
skinny young couples.
It's hot. There are flies.
The water cold and green.
Two daring teenaged boys
attempt to surf the brave Atlantic.
One stays up, the other
wipes out over and over,
swallowing saltwater slurry.
The sea calls to them
as it always called to young men,
writing its invitation on skin —
the slow burning sun,
the spray's harsh comfort,
the dark bellies of distant women.
Girls in bikinis pass by, oblivious,
holding hands with college boyfriends.
Lovers are the only speakers
of their language, their dialect of touch —
it is a dialect, we know, now.
You and I have our idioms,
our own festivals that seem more real to us
than Christmas. This holiday is one.
There isn't any word for the hollow
of the wave before it crests and breaks,
for the war of foam and current,
for the simmering ache back to sea,
all glittery. The tide closes in
on my toes as I wait for you
the way women have always waited,
gazing at a distant line, longing,
searching an infinite number of points.
WANDAJUNE BISHOP-TOWLE
Andover
