I remember touching Susan Bennett
on the inside of her left thigh in the surf
at Myrtle Beach by accident thirty years ago
and thinking it was a fish at first.
I raised my arms to the surface,
where they began to breathe,
then swim on their own out to sea,
followed by my legs and chest—
a school of happy, hungry fish.
I wakened then to the difference
between the groin of a girl and flank
of a fish. I said I was sorry as she swam
to shore, leaving my head in the surf,
where to this day it continues to bob
as a buoy, though Susan is gone,
and long since married.