Gone
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:40 pm
Revision of a posted piece from a couple years back.
Gone
I’m seventeen years old again,
back in my hometown and I see
the young me, walking down the beach
toward the sea.
At water’s edge, a foaming surge hisses
around my toes as I drop my board
to strap on collar and leash.
The water’s cold, it’s winter-time
and the early sun gleams liquid gold,
sparkling behind the offshore spray.
I have no wetsuit, we’re too poor
for that and a second-hand board,
so I pretend to my friends
I find rubber a hindrance.
Anyways, the water’s not so cold.
I grit my teeth and wade out with the board,
watching the backline as a set heaves and peels,
speeding across the too-shallow outer bank.
I slip onto the board and start paddling
in a familiar play of skinny muscles
that feel like they can go all day.
I push under through the mid-break,
stroke doggedly for backline,
duck-diving as a wave explodes in fury.
The power of the bursting bomb
pushes me deep, and then I point
for the surface, sleek as an otter,
riding the buoyancy in a rush of bubbles.
I’m alone out here this morning;
it’s too early, too cold and too shallow
for the usual pack of rippers.
I drift out next to the old wooden pier,
they say it’s to be demolished as unsafe.
Removing the pier will destroy the breaks,
on either side, the Wedge and Kontiki.
But I don’t really give a fuck anymore,
like my buddies I’m off to the Army soon,
wrapped in government conscription,
delivered fresh from high school.
(Nobody I know is going to university,
who the hell has money for that?)
Two goddamn years’ military service
is like a life sentence. And somehow
I know nothing will be the same again.
I’m being press-ganged into the infantry
which mostly means a border war posting,
where killing and other bad shit happens.
Often, there are names on the TV news.
Rifleman so-and-so, Corporal so-and-so,
killed in action, blah-blah-dead.
I check my feelings on the matter of mortality
and decide I’m not afraid of fighting communism.
I catch a short wave, kicking out as it closes;
oh man, it feels good to be in the water again.
The ocean’s cool and clean, the hollow waves
smooth as rippled glass and the beer headache
I brought to the beach is gone.
I met this chick Michelle at a house party
that got crashed by our crew last night.
I inched her bra off in a back room but
after that all I got was her phone number,
now just a smudge of blue on my wrist.
But maybe our paths will cross again,
been a lot of house parties this year.
I hear whistling from the beach. A surprise.
Both my older brothers are on the shore,
beckoning at me to get out of the water.
What do they want? They don’t surf -
they play football and drink and fight
and talk about jobs and cars and money
and screwing randy divorcees.
It must be bad news, what else?
I turn my back and stare out to sea
and decide they can wait for me
as I wait for a good last wave.
Gone
I’m seventeen years old again,
back in my hometown and I see
the young me, walking down the beach
toward the sea.
At water’s edge, a foaming surge hisses
around my toes as I drop my board
to strap on collar and leash.
The water’s cold, it’s winter-time
and the early sun gleams liquid gold,
sparkling behind the offshore spray.
I have no wetsuit, we’re too poor
for that and a second-hand board,
so I pretend to my friends
I find rubber a hindrance.
Anyways, the water’s not so cold.
I grit my teeth and wade out with the board,
watching the backline as a set heaves and peels,
speeding across the too-shallow outer bank.
I slip onto the board and start paddling
in a familiar play of skinny muscles
that feel like they can go all day.
I push under through the mid-break,
stroke doggedly for backline,
duck-diving as a wave explodes in fury.
The power of the bursting bomb
pushes me deep, and then I point
for the surface, sleek as an otter,
riding the buoyancy in a rush of bubbles.
I’m alone out here this morning;
it’s too early, too cold and too shallow
for the usual pack of rippers.
I drift out next to the old wooden pier,
they say it’s to be demolished as unsafe.
Removing the pier will destroy the breaks,
on either side, the Wedge and Kontiki.
But I don’t really give a fuck anymore,
like my buddies I’m off to the Army soon,
wrapped in government conscription,
delivered fresh from high school.
(Nobody I know is going to university,
who the hell has money for that?)
Two goddamn years’ military service
is like a life sentence. And somehow
I know nothing will be the same again.
I’m being press-ganged into the infantry
which mostly means a border war posting,
where killing and other bad shit happens.
Often, there are names on the TV news.
Rifleman so-and-so, Corporal so-and-so,
killed in action, blah-blah-dead.
I check my feelings on the matter of mortality
and decide I’m not afraid of fighting communism.
I catch a short wave, kicking out as it closes;
oh man, it feels good to be in the water again.
The ocean’s cool and clean, the hollow waves
smooth as rippled glass and the beer headache
I brought to the beach is gone.
I met this chick Michelle at a house party
that got crashed by our crew last night.
I inched her bra off in a back room but
after that all I got was her phone number,
now just a smudge of blue on my wrist.
But maybe our paths will cross again,
been a lot of house parties this year.
I hear whistling from the beach. A surprise.
Both my older brothers are on the shore,
beckoning at me to get out of the water.
What do they want? They don’t surf -
they play football and drink and fight
and talk about jobs and cars and money
and screwing randy divorcees.
It must be bad news, what else?
I turn my back and stare out to sea
and decide they can wait for me
as I wait for a good last wave.