Fire Island, 1991

Look how my mother's wrist hangs limp as she points,
as if there's something tangible in the waves
that soak the sand and seep towards us. Our
skin is drenched the color of cream-drenched coffee,
softened by five days of Fire Island sun. Watch
the wind clutch our clothes and try to pull us back,
as if there's something dangerous in the water
that already has us buried up to our ankles.
The fabric clings to my curveless young body,
breastless, hipless, and pantsless; here my mom
didn't fret about what boys would think. Under
swirls of white and gaping holes of blue,
as if the world was never proven spherical,
as if Jesus were never so blessed, I look ready -
longing to skim across the surface with my
blister-kissed heels, to challenge the wind and leave
my unwashed hair fluttering behind me, to run
as if muscles couldn't ache and lungs couldn't tire,
to see what would happen if I jumped right off
the edge of this little Atlantic Ocean.