Tuesday

Is a rose naked or does it have just one 
dress? Es un truco sucio

para mantenernos separados. They divide our bodies

by gender, our clothes

by gender, and even my wandering fingers

find themselves wrapped in rigid, formal clothing that everyone seems to like

but me. Pero

Adán y Eva

no estaban avergonzados.

Then God gave us the Word.

Y dicen

que este es la razón porque

no podemos mirar a un otro,

y no puedo verte, para siempre.

So, dressed as nicely as we can, we look at one another 
through little windows
and hope the blinds
never close.

Sunday

once outside a ballpark

a boy knocked me out cold.

i was very well drunk and

when i found my legs i staggered

forward and pleaded with the boy’s

father for some sort

of recompense.

it was a cheap shot,

but he was just a boy.

‘look at my goddamn lip!' i yelled.

i expected the father

to admonish his son

or offer an apology

but he didn’t even turn around.

he looked like a boxer's trainer,

bent over, rubbing the fighter's

biceps and shoulders,

quietly repeating some mantra

to prepare for the next round.

they had

forgotten about me.

there were fireworks 
above.

i stood

in the middle of all the strolling

people, tasting blood

and thinking of what to do.

i knew i could take the father.

his back was turned.

and the son would break

when he saw his father hit the sidewalk.

i thought about this,

and i still do,

but by the time

i made up my mind

i’d lost them on the train platform.

Wine Tasting

It was a night like a Tuesday night and the store was empty and full of glinting purple and yellow light.

"I'm not." Maggiano said.

"Yes you are." the man said. “It’s late and I appreciate it.”

"You shouldn’t. Believe me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t mean to drive you away,” Maggiano said quickly. “Thank you for saying I'm kind. Normally I'm very hospitable. On most days I could give you the histories of the finest wines and the less fine wines and make you buy more wine and spend more money than you’d like to. Here try this one.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s a white from Chile.”

“Sounds good.” The man emptied the glass. “It’s good. My, that is good. It’s good and interesting.”

“Sometimes the people like it.”

“Any awards?”

“No.”

“What does that say there? I can’t read Spanish. ”

“I don’t read Spanish either, but I know this wine does not have any awards.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen dollars.”

“That’s not bad at all.”

“You like it then, and you would like a bottle?”

“Sure, why not?”

“There’s much better for the same price. And much more expensive too."

“May I try something else then. Maybe a few of those?”

“I'm afraid not,” Maggiano said. “Tonight I have no interest in explaining to you what you are tasting. And the ones I might have you try aren’t open.”

“What the hell. I’ll take two bottles of this.”

“You’re in a hurry.”

“Not particularly. Just doing a little shopping. I’m having company over tonight and I would like to have something to drink and to talk about. If you could tell me a little more about this Chilean, I would appreciate it.”

“Can you count?”

The man leaned forward.

“Yes, of course. What are you asking?”

“See, it says 2010. That means it’s three years old. Three years is not a very long time, but it's not very short.” The man was beginning to smile. “It's from Chile,” Maggiano said, “but you already know that. Don't you already know that? Don’t people know where things come from just by looking?"

The man looked at his watch.

"I suppose nothing is simple for you wine people.”

"Maybe they could be." Maggiano tipped the bottle toward the man’s glass. The clear yellow liquid spilled from the neck. "Drink that. I'll go fetch you a bottle. No. Two bottles." The man stood impatiently not drinking the wine. “Then you’ll be on your way.”

The day prior, Maggiano’s wine store had been robbed by two young men, neither of whom had any patience, and one of whom had held a gun at Maggiano’s head.

Savage Animals

The sun was up. He was awake in a shack in Honduras in the jungle staring at a children’s poster hung haphazardly on the wall. There was a spider, a scorpion, a crocodile, a jaguar, a cobra, a lion, a hawk, and a wolf. Above the illustrations it said Animales Salvajes. There were two wolves. It was the only one that had two. Two wolves with heads joined in a stream, one nuzzling the other with its nose. He decided he would point it out to her when she woke up. But then again it might seem to her that he was trying to be metaphorical.

She was laying on the floor on her belly, because she had malaria and she was hot. She’d said that the couch felt like a motel couch and he’d slept on the floor and been cold because maybe she would be cold later on. The way she’d curled up and sweat. Kept her bra on all night. Funny thing. Women that way. White and padded. Now it was soiled and beige. Cold sweat or warm? What kind of dreams are you? Maybe she was better. Wake her up to see. Oh but the leg was looking worse. She would see. It was malaria. Had to be. There had been the rain. Made good sense. They had to get out of there. He went over to the window.

In the tall grass outside there was dew and birds. Not hummingbirds, but small birds that landed nimbly on the grass. Never seen that before. Looking for the bugs with the dew-wings. Hiding until the sun dried them they were. She moved. Her arm was over her face. Ants marching in a line on the window frame. Nearly put his hand there. The bright feelers on the bright red ants. Always working. Follow this one. Oops lost him. That one now. Carrying something. So’s this one. Oops lost him too. Maybe he should wake her and say, “If we’re going to leave today, we should leave now.” It would be better, with how the sun would be hot later, and causing all their problems, to hike out at once. There were two towns. Totzal and Xitilicalpa. No. Zitili-calpa is how they say it. X’s from the Mayans. Pronounced like z’s they are. Xitilicalpa was four miles away, but smaller. Totzal was eight, but bigger. They could do the eight miles. Why risk it? Imagine finding no help in Xitilicalpa. Then the trip is 16 miles. What would he say then. He packed her bags and woke her with a smile.  

The green mountains lit behind the backside of the leaves, and the sun dropped behind the black tops of the ones beyond, and in some spots the grasses shimmered where light fell through. They were on the trail by the river.

“Damn. Oh, Damn,” she said.

“What?”

“Oh!”

“Is it happening again?"

“I think so. I can't stand."

“Don’t sit down. Don’t sit down. Oh, honey.”

“I need water.”

“You can’t. It’s not clean,” he said. “God. I shouldn’t have drank the water. That was a stupid thing for me to do.”

“It’s OK. You were thirsty.

“That was a stupid thing for me to do.”

“It's done. Come here and look at my leg.”

“OK, but I can hardly see.”

“Touch it.”

He put his hand down.

“We should keep walking.” He took several steps and stopped. “We’re halfway there. Don’t you want to see a doctor? Don’t sit down. I may need a doctor too.”

“I don’t think you need a doctor. And I’m not sick. I'm just tired and I hate these bugs."

“Can’t you stand up?”

“We’d be there already if we’d gone the other way.”

“What other way?”

“The smaller town. I don’t know the name of it.”

"Ziti...Xiticaca. It's from the Mayan."

"That one."

“Yes, but maybe they don’t have a doctor, so I thought we should come this way.”

“Maybe there’s nobody to see us where we’re going and maybe we’re not halfway there.”

“Maybe not, but don't lay down."

“We should float back.”

“Float? Back where?”

“Home. It would be quicker.”

“That isn’t a Montana stream, Honey. There are piranhas, snakes, crocodiles, and jaguars and bacteria and amoebas that eat your brain. And we would drown.”

“Still it would be quicker.”

They’d met at a cocktail-party-themed party at Montana State and he had been studying American History and he’d dressed as Woodrow Wilson, and when she approached him with a cigarette in a long cigarette holder and asked his name he said something about isolationism, and she said something about F. Scott Fitzgerald, and then they both got particularly drunk, their friends had said (and then all become friends) and then he kissed her full, red lips through her veil and his mustache got stuck, and she wore it the rest of the night, and when they went to bed together he took it off, and she asked where did he get that come from, and he said he’d been wondering the same, and she called him a bastard, and then she asked him his name and he put the mustache on and said F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Then that cool night in October when they’d sat together on the screened porch and found they could spend long periods of time together without alcohol. They watched the trail of ants surround the candy the children had come and received and dropped, and then later, when they were drunk, he’d stood above the line of ants, and said watch this, and she’d said not to, and he didn’t.

“Where are you?” she said.

He put his hand out.

“Can you see the water? I’m right in front of it.”

“Aren’t there animals?”

“Yes, but they aren’t so big as I said they were. Get in."

“And the bacteria and amoebas?”

“We’ll just wash off and get away from the bugs and freshen up and wake up a little. I really can’t stand the bugs. And neither can you.”

“I am feeling better. Look at my leg. I don’t want to look at my leg.”

“I’ll hold it above the water and you don’t look.”

“How does it feel.”

“It’s not so deep.”

“Is it cold?”

“It’s not so cold. It’s warm, but not in the bad way.”

“Oh, God. They’re at me again. I can’t stand it.”

“I can't stand it either. Come here."

“We're going to float back, aren't we?"

“Why do you keep saying that?"

She was on the bank.

"Because that's the only way we're staying together."

"Because of your leg."

"Right."

Then that time at Grand Tetons National Park she’d spat over a precipice and hit the wing of a hawk. They’d stood there a moment. Both let out a small laugh. It flew off toward a two-pronged peak above a river in a valley with wide white pools, straight blue channels, clots of pine and rocks and snow. A line of distant mountains higher with snow. Another range all white. All white in the distance. At the same time they started laughing very loud and could not stop. This was the story where she’d loogied a hawk.

“What a strange place to be,” she said suddenly and sharply into the leafy blackness of the banks of the river and it was true. The moving water black and gurgling.  The river ran white against a large rock in the middle of the river and pushed the current to the the right where there was a smooth and deep channel. He had been asleep and he spoke without thinking.

“After a minute we are going to the city of doctors.”

“My leg is better.“

”“Honey, it’s not good to have it in the water.”

“But it doesn’t hurt me anymore.”

“It’s better then. You’re feeling better.”

“Sure.”

“It isn’t so bad after all, is it?”

“No. And there’s no amoebas.”

“Listen, I wanted to tell you something.”

“Tell me.”

“There was this poster where we stayed last night. I don’t know if you saw it."

"Can we call it something so you don’t have to call it the place we stayed last night?”

He pulled her close and kissed her ear.

“Home.”

“I love your sense of irony. Home," she said. "Home. Home."

He coughed.

"Right, well there was this poster. Did you see it? It had a drawing of a lion, a crocodile, a jaguar, a bear, a snake, a wolf, and some other animals. But the picture of the wolf had two wolves.”

“What were they doing?”

“They were nuzzling each other in the stream. They loved each other. I could tell they loved each other because of the picture. I wanted to show you this morning.”

“You should have showed me, now I’ll never see it.”

“Can you picture it? It says Savage Animals at the top.”

“Yes I can picture it. Two wolves loving each other in a stream. They’re not savage at all no matter where they are because they’re together. That’s what you want to say.”

“Exactly.”

“They love each other forever and always.”

“Yes. It’s lovely and I’m so glad you think it is lovely too.”

“Picture something for me”

“Of course.”

“Picture us floating back where we came from.” He did.

“But not on our bellies,” he said.

“No, we’re not on our bellies. We’re just like this.”

Like that time he’d sat against the wall in the living room in their first apartment and she’d said they should try and read each others minds to pass the time until the exterminator came, and she’d gone into the kitchen and laid down on her belly, he’d imagined, and then he’d fallen asleep and had terrible dreams. She woke him up and in that moment he smelled her loveliness that was his, and she was so beautiful he pulled her down and held her and thought very precise things until he was sure what was real and what was not. Then he let her go and said, "We made the right decision."

She looked surprised.

In a Cave

There is the feel of an ocean. Whipping banners and blue flags. The shops and vendors in the avenue. A small fountain. Driving along a boulevard of palms. Maybe it was for the Spanish I was speaking. The craggy buildings. Green hills to the side. The horizon dropping off below. I drove without thinking and rolled down the window—as people often do when nearing the ocean—for the smell of salt and the breeze. There was the buzz of motos and honking horns, the people baking in the sun, the smell of wood smoke and crushed vegetables and manure, and I was aware that I was not driving to the beach. There was not an ocean for thousands of kilometers. The avenue narrowed and turned to dirt, and then dropped between the houses like anthills, below the long green hills, a range of mountains I had not seen. 

Driving the car—a stick shift that wasn’t mine—down so many rocky, potfilled, roads, and getting lost within them, and reversing back down them, and performing three-point turns across them, from one muddy ditch to the other, had lent me a deep ache by the time we arrived at the caves, and I envied the workers we had passed, and the locals we had asked for directions, who traveled by donkey or horse or foot.

There were six cars in the parking lot at the caves. The yellow lettering on the treated wood signs reminded me of signs outside U.S. National Parks. A wooden fence with three triangular beams led to a small hut with a metal turnstile. A woman sat inside. Entering the caves would cost foreigners $15. Hondurans paid the equivalent of $2. I gave them the money and walked up a well-maintained trail along the river to the entrance to the cave. A small man with a smooth and round face like an olive walked out of the cave followed by a nondescript couple and their child, all of whom paused and looked at me and my companion. The couple continued down the trail along the gushing river to the parking lot and the guide introduced himself and asked if we had flashlights. We said no and he asked if we wanted a guide and we said yes and followed him onto the metal walkway and into the cool unscented darkness of a cave named Talgua.

Talgua is located in a cave complex outside the city of Catacamas, Honduras, in the Department of Olancho. It has human remains from 1500 B.C. And there is some mystery to them. The skeletons are all located in odd, somewhat unceremonious, places—several of which seemingly would require technical climbing gear to reach. And there are no paintings or writings in the cave. No drawings, no signs of life—as the saying goes—but the bones. One thousand five hundred years before Christ they were. That's a long time. That is same as the distance between now and the barbarians sacking Rome plus 2000 more years. 

We were not yet out of the light when the guide, who had a very nice and easy smile, motioned to a tunnel behind the handrail. It was of the wall behind us, and from it's direction it seemed it would lead directly where we'd come from. But scientists who had entered were forced to turn back after traveling for 8 hours without finding the end.

But there is a famous cave in France—now more-famous because it was the subject of Werner Herzog’s documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)—that scientists are able to study without entering thanks to sonar-mapping technology. Out of fear of contaminating the remains and more importantly the beautiful, museum-worthy paintings within, only the Scientists go in. They can see paintings that have disintegrated and see what layer of paint was put applied at what time, digitally scanning the layers of the rock. Archaeologists regard it as a church. Something holy. It was. The paintings are good: running horses painted by torchlight 30,000 years ago (for there is no light). And next to them, painted 10,000 years later, a vast lion hunt. Then we found it. 20,000 years later. The fathoms of time. This is the point of the film. And it is a good film. Most haunting though, of this cave’s oddities, are a set of footprints, deep within the cave, where there is no light: the footprint of a boy situated neatly next that of a wolf. 5,000 years later (still over 10,000 years ago) a man walked around making red handprints. Some are on the rock floor, some on the walls. Scientists confirm the handprints were made by the same man. He had a broken pinky.

The guide told us that the bones glowed, and referenced the beautiful, sparkly, curtain-shaped, stalagmites behind us. Sales y minerales. They glow because of the minerals in the water. Then there was a set of stairs welded to floor. With a less-than defensive, but erect, and braced posture, the guide explained that due to the sensitivity of the atmosphere around the remains only certain people were allowed to see them. He apologized, and pulled the orb of the flashlight back onto the floor.

And this is when I noticed the scratches on the walls. Someone had written mierda, which translates to shit. If I had thought of it at the time, and I hadn’t been distracted by a strange color sitting on the rocks, I would have asked the guide if it was really better to wall anything off, like in France, or to set to work scratching things like mierda on the walls. But that is when I saw this strange color sitting on the rocks. Algae growing on the walls. I hadn't noticed it when we came in. The light increased. We were nearing the entrance. The tour was over. The guide began a brief, farewell-hope-you-enjoyed-yourself-and-come-again speech he’d probably said a hundred, hundred times, and we said thank you, and we stepped outside and someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was raining. How long inside? I was squinting, my pupils so wide it hurt.

Water and Poison

It is a nice house. You would call it a cabin. In Honduras there are just too many critters to keep out. So, naturally, a sort of indifference develops. A tarantula under the couch, curled up and dead. Looked like an upside-down crab. Alright. Centipede crawls out of the drain. It's OK. Stray dog and softball-sized frog get in fight. Frog sits in puddle. Dog afraid of water. Dog barks at frog, then runs into my house. That's not good. How do you say bad dog? Come.

Gecko on the wall scurries a few inches and stops. Sits in one spot for twenty minutes then continues. The reptilian brain. Could smash it, but why? They eat the bugs. But then what eats the geckos? Well, why does anything have to eat the geckos? Your problem with geckos, not mine.

You must kill all the ants though. Because they are smart as shit. They will destroy your home. They walked right through the front door and into my room the other day. I followed them. Found them dissembling a Chiquita banana sticker I’d left in some pants pocket in the hamper. Must have had some banana still on there. The next time I just put the pants on. They all bite at once. That was the first time I could say, "I have ants in my pants."

So I asked Carlos, my boss, a father of two, a pious and respected man in town who is considered endearing to everyone he encounters, "How do you get rid of ants?"  He said: “Find where they are living. Dump boiling water. Then put poison."

I have dumped boiling water. Put the poison. But you can't poison rain. And it has rained twice on my bed.

Hustling out of the rain up to your front door. Fumbling with the keys. Almost there. Click. Yes. Into the still dryness. The wooden coat rack and worn dining room table. Pass the kitchen, the wires, open the bedroom door. Rain on both sides of the window. Raining on the bed. The cell phone, laptop, power strip. The oscillating fan shaking his head, sputtering like a a baby. We’ve got to get you unplugged. We’ve got to get you all unplugged. You stand there a moment and watch because it's incredible. And then get a bucket.

But then again, I get it.

I was making tuna sandwiches last night with a neighbor. She has a son. Good mother. Young. Kid was crying when we were leaving, so we stayed. Making tuna sandwiches. Then she turns to me, which is when I realize I had been staring at her hands. 
“You like lime?” she asks. “Taste good?” Very pretty.
I say yes. It would taste good. 
"Bring one," she says.  I look around the kitchen. On top of the refrigerator. 
"You don't have any."
“The tree,” she says. Then I remember there's a lime tree out front. “Get big one.” 
And I go in the dark and pull at the loaded branches and find many limes as big as apples.

This is Water

Couples sit and face the sun. Young people talk in a circle: a yellow one, a blue one, a green one, a brown one. The thing about epiphanies is that they’re nearly impossible to keep to yourself, and thereafter, they’re regarded at best as good ideas, at worst, common sense. Maybe the most important thing about having one is that you share it with the right person.

200 years before Christ, the Greek King, Heiro II, asked Archimedes, a mathematician, to see if his crown was pure gold or whether a dishonest blacksmith had mixed it with silver. To calculate the crown’s density it would have to be melted down—but Archimedes could not damage the crown. He was on a deadline and he had reached an impasse, so, worn out from puzzling, Archimedes sought refuge in the tub. But he was distracted and when he lowered himself in, the water spilled over the sides. He stood up, looked down and cried, “Eureka!” He had found the solution to the big problem by solving the smaller one. By dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of water displaced, he could figure its density—by weighing himself, teleologically speaking, he had weighed gold. That’s a golden idea. And he could have made a lot of it if he’d kept it to himself. But he did not even take time to dress before he took to the streets yelling, “Eureka! Eureka!” which translates to “I found it! I found it!”

I was wading in, bending over to toss the water with my hands. I wanted to see how other parts of me looked below the surface, but I could not see my feet through the moving water. And then I looked away and thought of the other things—the things one cannot help but think. And then I looked up at my mother’s bronze cheeks and her satisfied eyebrows and eyes that were savoring the flavor of the coffee in her mouth, and the nice summer weather, and the view from our street-side table at the cafe. I would like to take pleasure from such simple things. And then I looked down and I could see my feet and the rocks that stretched out underneath them. The solution to things, I think, is forgetting them for a while and then remembering.

“I don’t know.”

“What?” she said. And her eyes thinned, and I could not answer, and then she was standing in a lake too.

“Come in! Come in!” my mother was yelling from the shore. It was during the heat wave of 1995. We’d left Chicago for the Indiana Dunes to relax, swim, and cool off. “Riptide! You’re too far out! Honey! Rip! Tide!” People stood on their beach blankets saluting while others ran along the water. The water was fresh and dark out by the rocks, slapping against the rocks, and I knew that I was afraid. My mother was wading in. We often camped near lakes. Mom likes the woods—I used to assume, because my father was like the woods, but now she likes it on her own and she likes to swim—much more than me, but she does not like it all at once. She likes to wade.

You know how it feels when you’re walking into a lake or an ocean? Sometimes I can’t help but do it, but it never feels good—with the waves deciding how to touch and when. It was torture to watch Mom feeling so cold for so long—and so needlessly—so I would prove how silly she was by running out to the point where the water took my legs, lower my head into the darkness and push out hard underneath with my legs and arms with my eyes open, staying below until it felt alright to have been swimming, and then come up, wipe water from my eyes, turn to the beach to get my bearings and then see how things were in the same place they were before, but also not where I thought they would be. It bothered me so much sometimes, watching her tremble and wade, that I’d raise an arm and slap the water. “Just get in!” I would yell and she would smile and say that she was. She was taking her time. So I would go back to the beach and lay down on a towel and shut my eyes. Sometimes I would splash her—I don’t know why, because it ruined the whole day for her. She would walk back out and sit on the beach, looking like a stubborn child, and I would stay in the water because it seemed like I had to. Floating in one place, guilty and angry that we’d switched places.

“Do you ever feel like you’re being torn apart?”

“In what way?” she said, and I realized that I had asked her a question. But she knew I was not really asking her, and that familiar anxiety I feel when I think about how things change without me came in, and I retreated into my well-worn thought: What would I be like if I’d had an insensitive parent. A drunk that beat me, abused me, or withheld kindness. What could be wrong with me then? I suppose I would not have much time to think of that.

“Forget about it,” I said. The day was passing on. People rose into the white reflecting light of the glass tables and floated from the cafe back into the street looking a little uncomfortable and off-balance until righted by the crowd that swallowed them. It was still a nice day, but it did not feel all-nice anymore. I had not meant to alarm her. It was nice out. The street was full of faces. I really did not mean to alarm her. I pointed to a little boy who was throwing a misshapen ball against the ground. He watched in amazement as it bounced from the sidewalk to the grass, against the fence, zigzagging unpredictably until it rolled to a stop along the curb. He ran after it. A voice caught him from behind and he stopped and dropped his head and his mother picked the ball up and asked him: "How many times have I told you to stay away from the street?"

Why do children collect things on the beach? Show mother a shell and she keeps it. Give father a stone and he casts it across the surface of the water. There are plenty of good rocks. Some are great, flat as pancakes, and smooth and cool against your palms, good to hold but better to throw. And then you know how good you are at skipping stones.

We were both looking at the spot where the boy had been when she said, “I remember when you were just a little guy. It seems like yesterday you were—” she was struggling for the words “—like this!” she said, and placed her palm face-down several feet from the ground and squinted at me and looked old and smiled. She lowered her coffee seriously. “I used to wonder what you would look like grown up. I had these dreams where this man would be walking toward me down the other side of the street and I would look closely and realize it was you. All grown up." 
"How did I look?"

“Well, you were just so cute as a kid. Then, you still are. You've always been very handsome.”

“But don’t all moms think that about their sons?”

“Well,” she said, and looked sort of school-girlishly up at the sky, squinting, weighing what she thought about her son, and what other mothers thought about their sons. “It doesn't mean you’re not.”
We were not talking about what I wanted to talk about. How does that happen? Right. The boy and his ball. Gone now. The ball pulling the boy along the shaded elms. 
Many fish probably think there are fish shaped like human feet that live in shallow water. Many fish probably think there are fish shaped like the-fish-shaped-like-human-feet that are bigger and have legs and live in deeper water. Many fish probably think that there are fish shaped like the-fish-bigger-than-the-fish-shaped-like-the-fish-shaped-like-human-feet that thrash against the ceiling of the water and then swim below, with heads and arms and faces just like people, far deeper than any fish.

We were standing on the beach together when I was very young. Someone was taking our picture, and it is from the pictures that I remember that day. I don’t know who was taking the pictures. We were wearing jackets and long pants. Mom’s hair was permed and frizzy and we both looked ugly. We stood side by side and faced the camera. The sun behind the clouds made the look of grimaces on both our faces. It was a brisk fall day on the East Coast, the ocean behind us had whitecaps, shortly after my father died.

Have you heard the story of the three fish? It goes like this. Two young fish were swimming along when they came upon an old fish headed in the opposite direction. The old fish paused and said, “How’s the water? but he did not stop and the two young fish continued on their way. Then one of the young fish stopped and asked his friend “What the hell is water?”

I did not want to swim. It was a cold day and the water was grey and choppy, but Mom said she had to, at least, put her feet in. She looked at Gary and I and said, “We’re at the beach!” And we were. But it was fall and the whole surface of the water was wide. Repeating a cycle of grey, dark grey, and white. And the wind-whipped waves at the point of the sun on the horizon, the point where I often like to look (and maybe everyone does) did not seem distant from the place where my mother was walking. The waves crashing on the waves at the shore, and the seagulls above turning sideways, then righting as their bodies to go limp against the wind. I wanted to tell her to come back, to yell out, but the trees were yelling out, blowing toward the water, and I did not know how to say the words. “Oh boy,” Gary said, nervously, as she kicked off her sandals, “she’s going to be cold.” He did not know her well at all. And when I looked up, she dove in.

I wanted to apologize, for everything, but I looked down and found myself sitting where I wanted to be sitting, with everyone across from me smiling in the sunshine and enjoying themselves, so I did not say that I was sorry—because suddenly I did not know what I was sorry for after all; I did not wish for rain, or for time to speed up or to slow down. We would stay late together if we wanted, drink coffee, talk or sit in silence—one and then the other. The beach is pretty today. The wind is not hot or cold. And the air and the water where all the children are swimming is blue.