Green water.

Not the turquoise of postcards.

The Atlantic of New England.

Cold enough
to get your attention.

The surface stippled
with sunlight.

Beneath it,

currents jockeying
with one another.

A school of silver fish
turns all at once.

The seaweed lifts
its long green fingers.

A wave arrives.

Another.

Another.

Farther out,

a cormorant disappears
into the water

and pops back up

glistening and pleased with itself.

The salt gathers
on my lips and shoulders.

The tide rearranges
everything.

Like a messy bed remade slightly
differently each morning.

A gull screams triumph.

The horizon holds steady.

The water does not.

I float.

Then kick.

Then dive.

My body is happier
when it remembers
it is an animal.

A wave rolls underneath.

Then another.

Then another.

The sun on my face.

Salt on my tongue.

I am weightless.

I am in.