This morning the ocean greets us like an eager puppy lapping our ankles, dashing away to instigate a 
game of fetch or some care—a treat, a tug of war. The moon is still out, whole, splashing sliver on 
the water’s dappled coat, and the sky is beginning to brindle with purple. I’ve never been one for 
animals, for the large demands of their love, and dogs in particular render people a special kind of 
foolish, though I’ll hardly admit my indifference to anyone but you, friend, reeling at the fresh loss 
of your 16-year companion, a pocket-sized pup—vegan, ridiculous yapper who wore sweaters and 
sported a limp after some ancient injury, who rallied back to life just last month, steroidal and 
carnivorous, though that re-invention was short-lived. I want to be a comfort after your fevered 
nights tending, but I don’t say as the ocean shivers up to meet us that I understand your grief or 
even dogs, how unconditional or eternal, how your arrivals must always be a celebration, the same 
waggling welcome I find when I slip into my second skin and come here to the shore to meet you in 
near-dark. Instead I remember to show you Jupiter, a freckle on the cheek of sky next to Venus’s 
prominent mole…or shall I say they are two bright fleas in a shaggy sky coat? The star Antares is 
dim beside them, heart of Scorpion, sent to sting Orion, lurking unseen this morning in the other 
half of sky, for his callousness toward animals—a story I think of as we walk out into the waves and 
I step on the back of a crab, feel the crack of its shell in half beneath my neoprene-slippered foot. 
Somewhere 100 miles south of us they are cremating your chihuahua, and you tell me you dreamt 
last night of dust motes and strange light. Are you wondering, as I am, if today we are breathing not 
just stardust and old matter, but Amigo, newly released to the heavens, who might have winged a 
single ash upon a planetary wind to land here like the moonlight? The waves are wolfish as we get 
deeper, tearing us from our chatter; you, I know, are hoping for a perfect drop, a slice across a jade 
face and maybe even a barrel, while I’m still riding froth and foam, content with the ocean’s scraps. 
We begin our tandem work, mounting our boards and stroking the sea, aiming to put ourselves in 
the way of pleasure.