BEYOND THE BREAKERS

Out here

beyond the breakers

I float on the thick green sea

straddling my surfboard

Waiting for the next set of outsiders

I'm lulled by the gently rolling sea

lapping slapping by cream colored board

salty tongues licking my bronzed thighs

In the fathomless depths below

shafts of rippled sunlight filter

through the murky green swells

glittered with floating flecks of gold

A tendril of seaweed

or was it a shadow?

flits through the golden beams

that sway beneath my dangling feet

A faint splash close behind me

jerks my head around to see

slicing the sparkling surface

a dappled dorsal fin

not ten feet away

A bolt of fear shoots through me

yanking my feet up onto my board

where I perch

a terrified tripod of sea wrinkled feet

and bikini clad buttocks

Salty white knuckles grip

my teetering splinter of wood

as visions of "Jaws" slam into my mind

feeding instant hysteria

"Shark! Shark!"

I scream across the swells

as I drop prone onto my board

careful not to tip or upset

my tiny island

Heart pounding

I paddle furiously

eyes riveted on the distant beach

as I gain on the cresting waves

rolling and breaking towards shore

towards safety

Catching a wave I dare not stand

fear glues me to my board from chin to toes

as I cling tenaciously like a parasite

to its waxy wooden host

No fancy "360" or "Hangin' Ten" on this wave

one slip could send me splashing tumbling

into the waiting jaws of death

or worse

Finally

ankle deep in the safety of foamy soup

I gasp weaving on legs of rubber

squinting against the glare

scanning beyond the breakers

for that denizen of the deep

cleaving the glistening aqua surface

with its sickle of death

Suddenly...

there it is breaking the surface

then another!

and another!

and another!

Weak with exhaustion and relief

I collapse to my knees in the swirling foam

Incredulous...

as the school of dolphins leap joyfully

oblivious to the hallucination their playful visit

has wrought upon this deranged surfer