Darcey Steinke - Up Through the Water

His mother had told him a few nights ago that she wouldn't be going anywhere with Birdflower. She'd said she was going to rest for a while. And though he still felt anchored to her, the weight was not half what it had been.

Lila got out of the car. Her hood blew back from her jacket and she held her hands up to the gulls. He watched the many wing tips brush her, knowing they must feel like breath. In this way she was like his mother. They were more alive than most people, and this gave them power to draw things to them. For a moment it seemed the birds would lift her above the ferry. He rested his eyes. And when he opened them, the birds were gone and she was making her way through the pressing wind back to him.

From her car, heading back along the beach road, Emily could see the truck's rear lights as they inched over the ramp onto the ferry. It seemed right that her car and Lila's were bookends to the wide mile of beach and lavender sky.

After he left, her mood always varied; sometimes she was light-headed, other times more somber, even teary. Every year she swam. Last summer there'd been a host of Medusa jellyfish sending off green light. The year before she'd stroked straight out, so far that when she turned, the shore looked like a mirage. Once she tried to stand on a sandbank. Barnacles, like white teeth, cut the fleshy part of her foot and blood dribbled into the sand.

The car passed the campground. Tents and trailers looked emberish and exotic in the dawn. The pony pen clattered by. She pulled over, got out, and walked the path that led to the water. The sea smelled of living things, and it reminded her always of her own scent.

Just above the horizon was a thick purple, and above that, a halo of lemon. She slid out of her loose jeans and pulled her sweatshirt over her head. Her toes made twirling ropes in the water behind her, and when the sea was to her breasts, she dived in. Emily saw dark shapes in the water and thought of the weird fish, sea grubs, and mole crabs that lived underneath. She rolled onto her back. The moon was fragile as a paper nickel and the rising sun sent a snake of light across the water toward her. Nobody swims much past autumn, she thought, but I do.