skimming the surface, mlb

My whole world lies at his feet.  I watch him maneuver the rocky cove, tentatively at first testing a toehold for solid ground.  He shifts his weight applying pressure but not enough to commit if it is an unsafe spot to come ashore.  He is careful, perhaps too careful and I am always left unsure whether or not it is safe between us.

The soft sunlight glints like salt off the sheen of blond hair encasing the caramel of his skin.  He smiles back at me as if to say “I’ve got it figured out now.”  But I can’t see his eyes.  His hair has fallen forward, his chin dipped too low.  Maybe he is trying to tell me something else entirely.

From there he jumps.  I can hear the light splash of water nipping at his heels as he travels with effort to dry ground.  His strong hand pulls the nose of the small boat forward.  I float with it.

His other hand holds the line.  I am slightly jealous.  It coils around his fingers and loops his wrist like a snake.  Rocks growl against the hull as he glides us to the precise spot he wants.

I watch him.  He squats to tie the line around the base of a waterlogged tree.  His hands move quickly with more assurance than his feet will ever know.  I watch his round, speckled shoulders rise and fall as he works.  His movements seem to control the waves.  He is Gravity, I think.

His voice startles me, “What are you thinking about?”

I squint skirting my gaze away, out to open water; looking for a better answer than the one I have to offer.  Finding nothing but a blurred blue horizon I turn back to our shoreline, “You.” I reply.

He laughs, twisting to face me.  Now I can see his eyes.  He straightens.  There is a pause between us as if we are both straining to listen to a fading echo.

The waves lap the sides of the boat where my fingers linger in the cool water mixing with bits of splintered wood and drowning leaves blown in by the summer winds.


He is no longer laughing.  He has come to stand knee deep in the water.  The waves and foam drift around him.

His voice tentative on the edge of a rocky shoreline, “No, really what were you thinking about?”

He stumbles in the slick shallows letting his carefulness slip and drift away from him.  It skims the surface near enough for me to collect it. I am a thief not a fisherman.  I have no intention of returning it to him.

I stand and come ashore with dry feet. “No, really, I was thinking about you.”