Gidget Builds an Igloo
1. Swell
I thought you would teach me to surf,
Big Kahuna, to paddle ribbon candy trails
across frothy swells, to crouch and ride
the sea, swallowed and spit out
by its throat of salt and blue. You finessed
the waves, spanning them with fingers spread,
impressing the local boys (yawn). I spun
and trailed in your wake, went in “to see your hut.”
What did I know of longboards, of beach huts,
of men like you? While the sun sank and struck
its blister of light against the ocean’s rim,
a flood tide hurled seaweed in long, heavy ropes.
2. Rip Tide
At dusk you held your bonfire court––
demigod waxing your board, feasting on beer
and fallen dates, taking the summer’s adulation
as your due. I stayed in that palm-walled shack,
ignored the whispers of its crisp-fingered leaves.
I wiped the bar, stacked the dirty mags,
picked up sticky tiki cups, followed
trails of red punch drops to twisted towels,
mismatched bikini tops and bottoms
sand-stuccoed and stiff with salt.
Outside, the blow and pop of wet wood
burning. I didn’t look, didn’t see you foam,
full and reaching for another.
Kahuna,
beach blanket king, sure trader
on my sunny trust in bums––
you sharpened the blade you use on me.
Your quick work dressed the wits
of this girl who used to walk the littoral, casting
glances at couples nuzzling on bright towels.
3. Wake
Not sharp as this horizon, though, not bright
as this boomerang dawn––nothing as honed
and clean as here, where I’ve come to be alone.
I sleep and wake, numb inside
a barricade of chill. I stand on a white plot
marked with white, sit in a plastic chair
some former owner left behind. I watch shadows
slide across fields of frozen waves,
the shade collecting in each billow’s cracked
and glassy drum. There’s no surf or sand
or palm trees here––just my auroral nights
and lawn of ice and sun. But always I hear the wind,
slicing and sweeping up the days, sounding
like the sunburnt husks of hula skirts, rustling.
I thought you would teach me to surf,
Big Kahuna, to paddle ribbon candy trails
across frothy swells, to crouch and ride
the sea, swallowed and spit out
by its throat of salt and blue. You finessed
the waves, spanning them with fingers spread,
impressing the local boys (yawn). I spun
and trailed in your wake, went in “to see your hut.”
What did I know of longboards, of beach huts,
of men like you? While the sun sank and struck
its blister of light against the ocean’s rim,
a flood tide hurled seaweed in long, heavy ropes.
2. Rip Tide
At dusk you held your bonfire court––
demigod waxing your board, feasting on beer
and fallen dates, taking the summer’s adulation
as your due. I stayed in that palm-walled shack,
ignored the whispers of its crisp-fingered leaves.
I wiped the bar, stacked the dirty mags,
picked up sticky tiki cups, followed
trails of red punch drops to twisted towels,
mismatched bikini tops and bottoms
sand-stuccoed and stiff with salt.
Outside, the blow and pop of wet wood
burning. I didn’t look, didn’t see you foam,
full and reaching for another.
Kahuna,
beach blanket king, sure trader
on my sunny trust in bums––
you sharpened the blade you use on me.
Your quick work dressed the wits
of this girl who used to walk the littoral, casting
glances at couples nuzzling on bright towels.
3. Wake
Not sharp as this horizon, though, not bright
as this boomerang dawn––nothing as honed
and clean as here, where I’ve come to be alone.
I sleep and wake, numb inside
a barricade of chill. I stand on a white plot
marked with white, sit in a plastic chair
some former owner left behind. I watch shadows
slide across fields of frozen waves,
the shade collecting in each billow’s cracked
and glassy drum. There’s no surf or sand
or palm trees here––just my auroral nights
and lawn of ice and sun. But always I hear the wind,
slicing and sweeping up the days, sounding
like the sunburnt husks of hula skirts, rustling.
