'Saturday afternoon at the beach' by Rachel Smith

skid of flounder under my feet
Step careful, you warn me, watch for stonefish. You tell me you will be back soon, promise cray as fat as my arm for dinner, and then you are gone, out where blue becomes black. I move with cautious feet along the shoreline, look for fish-faced stones, back and forth along the same stretch of water until the reef is a rim of white in the darkened sky. And there are things you did not warn me of, so many things it seems. You did not tell me of currents and waves and sharp-teethed reef, how a moment of pause is the same as a decision. You did not tell me of the step between water and beach, skid of flounder under my feet, how all that seems solid and sure is not.