Undertoe I listened closely when you warned me sagely of the undertoe - finger wagging I imagined a man or a beast, slipping under the waves with hands big enough to grab my six year-old toes and drag me back out to the aqua sea My eyes narrowed as I looked at the sunbleached beach. I knew that ocean, with its suspicious white sand and salted bath water was too affable too clean to be trusted It wasn't like our cantankerous ocean that rose to end your game as you played soccer on the sand bar with the other summer-softened men the boys came up shivering when they dove for our camp frying pan mom had dropped from the bow into water too dark to find treasure. I swam over my head and felt the salt sting my eyes for the first time in water too cold to wash dishes And your curses at the outboard motor bounced off unsympathetic waves into my ears as we drifted as a family in Desolation Sound It was that kind ocean with its waves and its man or its beast that rose up one balmy Hawaiian February Night And took hold of your toes and cured your burning lungs with its brine so soft and so warm you didn't even know you weren't breathing.Birth sign: Sagittarius
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