Last night we stomped the moon. Today a wave
curls back into the ocean. The sand beneath my chair shifts.
Girls in bikinis hold fists of hair atop their heads. Flinching,
they wade into the cool, churning water.
Men alter their gaze from the toddlers at their feet,
to the slim hips of other people’s wives.
Beyond the surf, an elderly woman skims the surface
with a graceful arc of backstroke.
She is the last evidence of pure beauty I will ever see.
A father (my father perhaps?) introduces his young daughter to the
rhythm of the waves.
She rides his hip into the breakers, his sour breath in her ear:
Don’t fight the waves baby, drownings occur in the struggle.
His hand smooths the pink ruffled bottoms of her swimsuit,
and lingers.
Povia, a Ewing resident, is chief of staff to Assemblywoman Liz Muoio of the 15th Legislative District. She writes: “At last year’s Summer Fiction reception in August I met members of the Princeton Library’s Writers Room and now regularly attend their meetings.”
