Paddle through the breaking waves.
All is broken blue;
shattered water, strewn clouds above.

Pierce the final crest; you’re in the clear. You glide.

The pull of the sea, the pull outwards.
Keep paddling—left, right. You’ll make it to the promised land, where the sun lights up the water on the horizon like electricity.

The sound of cars fades away. The shore gets further.
With a shock, you hear the quiet.
The water pulsates undisturbedly, hills of undulating pillows lifted by great swells.

Drifting. The soft dip, dip of the oars. The rhythmic slap of the water against the hull.
Your stomach lurches; here everything is flow, wind and water and sky, and you slide across the top of an immense fishbowl. You are the only thing making noise.

Quiet seabirds gather on a clump of kelp. Investigate.
You could integrate into this system, were you not afraid.
But the birds sense it, and they fly off.

Brief thoughts of monsters beneath. In the looking glass of the sea: the imagination.
You could make it out of land’s sight, make it to the middle; make this isolation absolute, merge.
But you have a paddle, and this will end.