In the morning the sea is near me. Jeans under my dress and I lean forward. The waves take me in their palms & drink the girl I was before. Beneath there are shells, dead roses from a failed wedding proposal last Saturday, feces from gulls over head. I taste the salt, undress my skin, fly across the sand: mortal, unbound. Stones spike my earthen feet & eat the girl I was before. There is a song that goes every perfect summer’s eating me alive until you’re gone. Sometimes if I think really hard I remember the way he said my name. Slipped off tongue like shining silk on starry virgin pure. He, too, sailed the ocean untethered. He, too, wondered if crabs thought the bottoms of boats were clouds. Often I become the emperor Commodus. I am their gladiator. I am gladiator. In my imagination there is a beautiful place. No fights or arenas, only soft breeze and thick honey. I look at my hands and cry. My bloody hands, tough and briny: I look at them and I cry.