The memory is beginning to fade.
The repetitive replaying has lessened. Psychic fracture
nearly healed. For many years if someone said fear
that California coastline would appear.
My father’s wet chest, his arms clamped tight around my six-year-old body.
His final fed-up insistence that I stop fearing water.
I clung to his neck, screaming out in breathless bursts
as he walked us deliberately into the ocean. His forward gaze did not falter.
He did not whisper words of reassurance or try to make me laugh.
His clinched jaw, his silent exasperation
at my senseless dread ricocheted off the crescendo of white caps
rolling their way toward us.