Our ancestors a hundred years or so ago might have
grown faint at the sight of us –
a bobbing soup of human flesh
with just a few bits of nylon and netting to go around
But there’s something sweet,
natal even, to this near-naked amalgam of strangers
with pimples and moles,
curves and bones,
rocking and swaying as one with the rising waves
This sea of pinks and tans and browns—
children of God—
each afloat in earthly vessels,
gripping a noodle of foam,
tossing a beach ball now and then,
kicking and paddling the best we can
