at the last moment, the water swirled around me and my eyes popped open as i realized what he had just done. he swam away with a grin on his face, mouth in the water, lids little and glinty like a land predator taking his share of the ocean’s fare.
he spit out a stream of water staring me in the eye. thats what i saw before i ducked below the surface. there was the secret colony of friendly grays that inhabit baja singing. i heard them and their many dialects. one tribe swam straight and close to the shore, with shorter clicks. the other slightly swirving, farther off and with an added moan. the sun disappeared into the depths of the water off where the pressure gets to be too much. so i floated near the top where i could hear the whales singing and, muffled, them talking and laughing about drinking beer.
i floated in the pool toward the moans and added my own. they accepted me as one of their band, and decorated me with smooth shells and barnacles on my breasts. they nuzzled my thighs while i drifted toward the shallow end making up my mind about whether to come up now with the whalers so close, their sharp spears tipping, or fake dead and find myself abandoned in an illegal swimming situation.
one never makes up their mind in the ocean. they just leave it behind.
