Dark Island
We sat up
on our towels
listening
like dogs at attention
to a yelp across the sandy distance,
woken too late by some commotion in the water.
Flailing
At a house down the beach,
guys on a deck call toward it,
words swallowed by the ocean expanse.
I think I recognize an older man in a sarong
from off-off Broadway Shakespeare,
failing to project.
I picture running, diving, tearing through the sea,
finally acting on that lifeguard
certification from so many years ago,
but sit still
as a helicopter swarms in,
blades spinning, ropes hanging,
then again on the beach spewing sand,
the body like a washed-up sea mammal,
the young doctor from our house
attempting mouth to mouth
as a crowd circles
like we might’ve watched the two
behind the dunes the day before —
the smooth sinewy neck I never wrapped
my arms around
to pull out.
He stays limp
lying there
until they fly him off somewhere
to be certified in whatever way:
young, drowned, gay.
His housemate explains
how the victim wore a brace on one leg
and might have been high
when he snuck off on his own for a dip
and one thing had led to another
as these things will,
the undertow,
the currents that seem so innocent.
It must’ve been a Monday
because back at the big house
it was just the young doctor and Jon and me,
muted and bobbing in the shadowed pool.
It was my first time in the Pines,
my boyfriend’s quarter share.
That Friday I arrived
late after my temp job and then a rehearsal,
had run for the Long Island Rail Road,
coffee wired,
lines to memorize,
the crowded van to the ferry
and the jostling life at the pier when the boat came in.
Fading
It was after midnight when
I found the house by the number
along the quiet wooden walkway.
No lights left on,
A black silent square.
Stumbling in,
kitchen,
stairs,
sleeping bodies in bedrooms,
I found the toilet.
After a while,
Jon slugged up to the door to knock,
Are you here?
