Summer '91

by Craig Shay

I’m pretty sure I drowned
that summer in 1991
off the coast
at Robert Moses’
while the surf
took me out
in an angry rage
away from sand,
the blankets,
the umbrellas,
and into
a warm black
soundless abyss.

Suddenly there were lifeguards
and swimmers standing around.
I guess the truth is…
I wanted to drown
I was only nine
but Susan, Susan,
had said no to me
and I knew what it was,
I knew it was the start
I knew, I knew,
and foolishly believed
these visions of love were true
we’d be married etc…
Susan Morphy
with the freckles,
blue eyes and brown hair
wearing orange walkman
headphones
borrowed from her sister
brown bathing suit covered in sand
endless freckles
I was too embarrassed
it was humiliating
I wanted to be buried
in a graveyard of sand
let the ocean to crash me
into oblivion
and die there
peacefully
on the beach
without embarrassment.
Let the seagulls
pick at my white bones
like a discarded sandwich.

Spinning upside down
below the water
that lifeless feeling
being thrown into this
vicious baptism
salt water in the lungs
sand in the face, ears,
and nose
and those shadows
lurking beneath the tide.
I’m pretty sure I drowned.

Coughing up seaweed,
she didn’t see me there.
Susan was gone
in her family’s
broke down station wagon.
I moved on.

I’m pretty sure I drowned that summer,
everything since has been a dream.