The girl is at the dock. You see her
like a photograph, following all this
rule-of-thirds nonsense; she at the dock,
which is dark and decaying and natural
against the sandpapered ocean, and maybe
a sea gull, blurred, cast upon a wooden seat. She
has brown hair, graced past her shoulders, scattered
like shells on the thin sandbar,
slightly lifted in the breeze off the sea.
Her dress is too – floating like a buoy,
white and matching the sea gull's pent
dedication to the waves. You expect her
to turn; you expect her to dip a toe
into the water that will send shivers
along her spine; you expect so many things
from the girl you don't know, sitting at the dock
watching noon clock by: lazy, rolling.
She is slipping toward the edge, slipping
to the moment where gravity simply overcomes,
where she is the anchor, you are the soft sound
of a wave falling along the beach, a shell cupped
against the ear, the silver sun's glare.
You are across the dock; you are outside
the picture frame. She is within, shining.