body-surfing like I was a kid again - written on my phone at around 1:30 tuesday morning at the infamous waffle house on cheshire bridge in atlanta

in the heat of the second

of two days at roast

under a brutal southeastern sun
the tide is out—

and the gray dense sand 

is concrete-hard and indifferent
to the easily abraded skin on the side
of my torso from my armpit to my waist

and would I be childish to admit
that I was awarded these abrasions
while bodysurfing in shallow water
where the waves were breaking

in the Atlantic off the beach at Tybee Island
near Savannah on the southeastern coast
of Georgia where are harbored
the ghosts of slavery ships?