31 March 2024

By Philip Kuepper

Last seen jogging
along the beach,
the rower was a motion picture
of health.
The weather was sterling,
the sky a cloudless, scalded blue.
The sea had been turned
to silver leaf by the sun,
some of which, now and then,
rose off the sea in spray,
as though a magician was attempting
to form a man out of sea and spray.
The spray would blow toward shore,
run along the beach
and fade to nothing.
The rower who had last been seen
jogging had been jogging
through sea spray.
And when the sea spray faded
away to nothing, the rower
had vanished.
Surely those who had seen him
vanish,
hadn’t seen what they saw?

(10 March 2024)