i'm standing right here

packing uproots everything, including the fall of 2003

men out in the crashing surf with waders up to their chests and rainjackets on. they’re fishing for dinner—fishing to catch something. but pick a spot a few yards away, down the beach from the point, where the surf is less complex. pants rolled up to the knees, feet bare, a turtleneck, a sweater. back to the sunrise—it’s not the purpose of the fishing—indifferent to the slicks—dinner will be had regardless. it is the warmth of the water as it laps against the knees; the way feet feel as the sand gets washed out from beneath them; the way the index finger gets bruised and cut from the repeated detainment of the fishing line; the bruise that forms just inside the right hipbone from the pressure of the butt of the fishing rod. it is looking at my father, over to the right, fishing meditatively—performing with ease this motion that has taken my body so many years to understand, still strains my arms and my shoulders—framed by the sunrise, steady, infallible, on the brink of the ocean.