Alone with the Goddess

The young men ride their horses fast on the wet sand of Parangtritis. Back and forth, with the water sliding up to them and away. This is the sea where the goddess lives, angry, her lover taken away. Don’t wear red, don’t wear green here, the people say. Do not swim in the sea. Give her an offering. I give a coconut to protect the man I love. The water pushes it back. I wade out and throw it farther. “The goddess does not accept your gift,” an old woman says. I say perhaps she likes me and we are playing a game. The old woman is silent, the horses wear blinders of cloth, the young men exalt in their bodies, not seeing right or left, pretending to be brave. Sliding on and off their beautiful horses on the wet beach at Parangtritis.