No1: PINK BOATS

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

TESS MACFARLANE

I decided to go whale watching today

Mr. and Mrs. Williams were walking out to their boat and offered me a ride

They said they had coffee and a box of Tim Tams

I headed to the stern and sat

quietly looking over the boat 

to see the motor

Mr. Williams turned his red sailboat

keys and let out a laugh

My eyes stayed on the wings of the propeller

Its constant rotation made my eyes fill with

salt and heat

Mrs. Williams wrapped a blanket around me

Her cheeks colored with first loves

and fingers jagged from constant cracking

The ocean seemed more mysterious today

The floating purple whispered to the sky

They planned their eerie feeling

My fingers jumped ship and to say hello to the coral

The water climbed up the boat and wrapped itself

Around me

Its tight grip secured me until

I fell

I stopped at the ocean floor

It’s pink down there

Pink with a touch of lemonade

I could stand up

I wasn’t swimming or drowning

I was walking

I was the star piece in an aquarium 

but with no spectators

I screamed

Not to escape 

but to test the boundaries

It was air three hundred feet up 

And for miles in the distance

When I looked up I saw bottoms

Of old wooden pirate ships

They were so far away

Yet I could see the sky above them

It was blue having a war with the pink from underneath

The ground was empty

I sat down but kept looking up to the boats

No one ever tells you how beautiful the bottom is

There is a slight curve and boards are placed diagonally

I wondered what Mr. and Mrs. Williams were up to

I hoped they enjoyed their day above the water

They always get excited to sit and make their town look tiny

I looked tiny now,

My town was huge

It was only me and the bottom of sailboats adrift in a pink cloud

When I reached in front of me I could feel 

The heart of the rocks that were lying with me

I was surrounded by something different

Something so empty and so comforting