Swells
Flounder-like, belly side down
Arms as elbowed paddles
Ten-toed fin, to guide her stern
She points her freckled nose
As dolphin do
Toward horizon’s
Faint thin line
Goal to nowhere
Far, far, away
As if to aim for nothing,
Or toward everything
Invisible to the eye
Every now and then
Covered by the pulsing salty ebb
Pulsing flow
The water’s wet heartbeat
Slower than her own
This aquatic journey
Finds her rolled, in seconds flat
Into a soggy silk cocoon
Tossed, her torso bent, curved
Into a salty spherical swell
The beginning of the giving in
A bit
And riding
With
And not against
The swells
Of good intent
Eyes now skyward
Focused
Even heavenward
She learns
From wave on wave
Those cotton white
Glistening
Mirrored on the sea
Yet dancing freely
Against the sky
No with
Yes, with
This is how she learned
To
Just
Float
Joining the folks at Tweetspeak for the poetry prompt: swell
elizabeth w. marshall 