Water Swallows
mh   2/9/98


"I tried to tell him how the waves darkened and left only the sound of their breaking,. . ."
		--- Philip Levine, "One Day"

"Everyone, monster or beauty, going smash."
		--- Mark Jarman, "Wave"

We waded in the Mexican Gulf,
13 or 14 years young,
newly curious of the ways of woman,
my first kiss still years away.
We tried to pick a wave of the right size,
but they changed shape and sense even faster
than our adolescent bodies.
Bracing ourselves we would charge into 
that cascading tidal force, declaring
a duel against nature.
	My first football practices would soon start 
and I asked him if hitting people was 
harder than hitting these waves.  "A little,"
he had said before the water swallowed us.