Once I was sitting on the shore edge at Mullins,
Foam painting my soles coarse with sand.
The waves wrinkled like my grandmother’s hand
As bullet fish swirled round my ankles.
I wondered of the throat sting of salt,
The metal scorch of flooded nostrils,
Of how weightless I’d feel underwater
Where my locs float like sun rays,
How the heaviness would reenter my body
As they dragged me out blue and bloated,
When there, in the distance—

A ground dove
And a wordless song.

Flailing on the surface,
The grey feathered thing
Was cutting the horizon
With one frantic wing.

She clung to the sky till I swam out to meet her,
And arm outstretched, I swam her to land,
Both of us now one winged
As she nestled on my back.
Spiky and shiny with droplets,
The coast clumped in her plumage.
She lay quivering with cold
But even then,

Singing—

Sputtering, whimpering,
But singing still.