The Sea Toward my beach ladder rungs of waves barrel roll growing in grandeur as they suck the ocean floor advancing, spitting froth from rolling lips anxious to be lapping at the shore with sweeping tongues tearing dancing pebbles in a bristle of chatter like tiny teeth sucked back into the next wave now grown huge and thrashing with proximity to a promised piece. Blood-worms burrow deeper into muddy waiting, blue muscles clump and cling to beaded sea weed rubbery in its attachment to rocks that roll and wash. And no birds fly, the air too thick with salt and crying wind undulating in frequencies that seagulls understand as well as I. We wait for the rogue wave counting in sevens but I know it's gathering strength beyond the farthest rung.

Betty Ponder