Photo of a Girl on a Beach

Once when I was harmless and didn’t know any better, a mirror to the front of me and an ocean behind, I lay wedged in the middle of daylight, paper-doll thin, dreaming, then I vanished. I gave the day a fingerprint, then forgot. I sat naked on a towel on a hot June Monday. The sun etched the inside of my eyelids, while a boy dozed at my side. The smell of all oceans was around us— steamy salt, shell, and sweat, but I reached for the distant one. A tide rose while I slept, and soon I was alone. Try being a figure in memory. It’s hollow there. For truth’s sake, I’ll say she was on a beach and her eyes were closed. She was bare in the sand, long, and the hour took her bit by bit.