The Boardwalks

The boardwalks were my in-between, a place I could stop and stare at the bugs dancing on the rippling surface. I was ten, back then. I wasn't there, per se. If I bent over the soggy wooden planks, my face was right next to the lilies in the shade. It was there that I lost myself. The water expanded from a swamp to an ocean, the floating plants transformed into huge, dangling foliage. Spiders hunted enormous insects in a tense, vibrating posse. I could feel my body dissolve and be dragged into the morass. The sun bathed it all in a crystalline focus, white sparks glistening on the backs of ants.