Surfacing
There is a person on the beach, and their name is June or Jude or some other name beginning with a J. It’s on the tip of your tongue, lifting with the salty breeze and coating your lips with white streaks of salt; something still there but already gone. Just a dark outline against a bright grey sky and dark blue sea. Stormy.
From this distance, they could be a dog; animal grace descending into the sea, wet hair clinging to their shoulders like seaweed. There, there was someone once, not so long ago.