We didn’t know how to swim, but we knew
how to swim. Thrashed and violent.
A skull washed up on shore.
Maybe a squirrel, maybe a sign
something was here, gnashed its teeth.
I bit my cousin and got uninvited to mini golf
and my grandmother stopped loving me
from close-up. I found
a sand dollar. A horseshoe crab. Lucky
bones forced smooth by a skeleton
tumbled like rocks. We spit
watermelon seeds from the deck. I’m sorry
for the biting. I’m sorry for the lump in my throat.
I’m sorry my grandfather only remembers me
pickled by the Atlantic Ocean, spellbound
and sunburnt, illuminated
under lights around a mini golf course
we snuck into while my grandmother fed my cousin
ice cream before the sea
swept the legs from under the house
and took all of us with it.