Girl in a Blue Bikini

I had kneaded wet sand into the slack skulls
of wax, cupped shore water over their scars.
Already knee-deep, I had pulled on the dead arms
of my wetsuit, startled how they waked to life.
From the pier, a fisherman had chucked
his hook into my deliverance of surf.

I had almost escaped. Away from work, the kooks
on the boardwalk, the festering winter of my morning book.
My surfboard jerked against its leash after
a wave ran down the pilings toward
a girl in a blue bikini who walked
to me by the shore

I well remember a girl, Ukrainian Jew, slim with black hair,
who, as she passed close to me and the mass grave’s edge,
pointed proudly to her cold, nude body and said,
Twenty-three years old.

She is about to give her bare legs to the sea.
I lurch as if to stop her. Noticing me, her eyes pucker
with distaste: You will never be my lover.

She blossoms
now against the cold surge,
an urchin refusing to budge.
I paddle away into her oblivion
thrilled for writing.
I will have recreation in her grave.

Kevin Riel is progressing through an MA in English and Creative Writing at Claremont Graduate University. His research, creative, and lifestyle interests revolve around 20th-century poetry and California/beach studies. For intermittent updates on this project, follow him at http://twitter.com/the_OBcian.