I go back to that spot where I met the merman last time. It is where the waves collapse into white froth and the sand is suspended with the currents.

The low seven o'clock sun glares down and light flashes off the sea into my eyes. It's blinding. The wind pulses over my face and shoulders. Behind my eyelids it is all orange.

I dive into a wave, opening my eyes to the thick turbid water. My hands are pulling me across the sea floor, and I look up to the sage green surface. I push off the bottom and emerge in a trough between two breakers.

My arms are spread wide into the wind. My salt-water hair lashes against my back and arms. I look to the city rising out of the sea, to the rounded green mountains flanking it, then to the islands and the far shore that is peppered with sail boats.

I fall back into the water, letting it wash over me, into my nose and down my throat.

While the tide crept in, I body surfed the waves. My mind began to clear of the Shuswap fog and the poetry returned. I laughed real laughs as the huge waves surged beneath me. Back, forth. Back, forth. I need the ocean.

I NEED the ocean.