Photo found on Twitter

(written on the run as promised)

August 18, 2019

With waves splashing ashore, an east wind turning up blouses, making women hold down their garments, seashells carry their expired aromas from sea. Canvased by each crashing wave, sea weeds beach themselves upon damp sand. Vacationing eyes gawk past shallow waters, as one man shares concern for unlearned rafters.

Where water meets the soaking sand, stands a man, eyeing what float atop the waters and he exposes his palms. “Come here, near, I ask,” he says.

People on the beach await his move—watching the lost drifters without a paddle, oar, and only the wind to take them where doth please. In a collective breath by the standing watchers who care, each inhale as their ears seep fear.

They see it’s a man and woman in the raft, glancing back beneath their sail’s pull. Floating into the open blue, their faces turn of a beggar. Knowing they’d die of oncoming weather, the man at shore takes one step into the ocean blue, defying his color beneath our sky’s hue. With another step, those watching look closer as some veer forward, understanding he’s heading into the deep.

“The negros can’t swim. What’s gotten into him?” A man shouts.

Another step puts him Achilles deep. Now the crowd together watches his feet. One foot before another, following that foot forward, and his arms rest beside him even farther.

“You’re reaching the deep end man, we’re okay, let us drift with the wind,” says the man in the boat.

As the man’s body moves through oncoming waves, the only thing wet is below his feet. By each step he takes, further into the deep end, not even there he sinks. Far enough to drown, he floats, standing atop closer to their boat.

“Do you need us to throw the rope?” They ask.

Silence—so they assume a nope. Out fourscore yards as he goes, deeper into the blue and now remote, what could be holding him up?

“There’s a high tide dude. You must give up,” shouts the man at shore.

One who’d do so to remand; and by a collective disbelief. With an origin of space where many are took, they first couldn’t believe. Two feet above water, he stands as though he’s walking on shallow grounds. If the sea floor come up to bore, where’s life needing water near shore?

As the waves splash and pass,

They’d recede and moist his calves.

Foot after foot he walks,

Into the blue where sharks stalk.

Where’s life if the sea ground’s up?

They’re waiting for a one and only to breathe luck.

You’ve got to be crazy and have run amuck.

But crazy is standing still as the drifters are fucked.

Trusting the brightest above.

A big fish moon holds him up.

And there a negro life-guard.

He can’t swim—though saves by showing up.

-Budd