Seashore

Blue poured down from the sky and spilled into the water, and the water spilled onto the shore. It flowed up the sand, easily, and glided back down, like a comforting hand on a familiar back, sliding up and down. The sand, having been lapped so many times, took on the water's rhythm. The sand's surface mirrored the water's, only with much slower waves. My bare feet pressed into the mud-ripples. I almost regretted disrupting their calm march, but the soft sand felt so good on the soles of my feet. My stillborn regret vanished like the seawater soaking into the sand.

And the waves licked the shore again, and again. The water rose around our legs, and we sloshed through the tide as the sun turned the sea to silver and fire. The water kissed the sand and ran away, and crept back for another embrace--and eased away again--and slid forward again, and then back--and then forward, again, again. We splashed on: shoes in his left hand, sandals in my right; my dress dancing with the wind, his rolled-up jeans fearing the water that swirled around us. The waves and shore kept parting and rejoining. Meanwhile, our hands flowed together, our movements mirrored each other, like the sand-patterns shaped to the sea's caress while the sea's flow reflects the sand.