by Emma Tresemer

it was this once, my dearest ones, my blessed foolish companions, that we,

            called forward

a pod of savage whales to that mystic mythic seaweed-riddled beach

with bellies full of fish and the black rubber of fins and feet

born of dreams and lovers and the ideas we so often leave behind

here, let's rest, we all say,

and the white beach is a thought that looks new and exciting

(this is the once.

            and you are the one who holds my form, brushes quiet against slick skin

                        (mine)

You are the one who lends yourself to my limping frame,

            all through these skinny waves

dreaming together)

this once, as when I spat back out Jonah, and Ahab, and all those pretty initiates with    their pretty hands

and groaned like a monster, furious, desperate,

            rolling back in the water with my wild black eyes and unforgiving teeth

and you hummed a single song to me, a single thread of naming

and the sand dropped away again to reveal nothing

the very deepest of nothing

the beach wandered off.

picked up its old swim trunks and abandoned bottle caps and called it a day

it was this once upon a time, a moment of couldhavebeen immortalized

by thrashing of bodies unaccustomed to soil and the terrible

righteous fury of air moved only

by the gasps of survivors in the endless attempts

            to remember what it was to have legs, lungs,

            toes and fingers

that would push out of the sand growing fur and long strides and join

into the forest to run delirious against the cool face of the moon

again, singing songs undiluted by the molecules of wetness surrounding them

you whispered

no, come back to me, I know what you are, if you have forgotten I will tell you again

and your current is stronger than my resolve.

            we slip away.

Back to the perfect blue belly of the world

leaving nothing but the glossy footprints of bubbles

the indifferent braille of the ocean the only mark of our passing time _¤