Where we’re standing between green flags
is a stretch of beach with conditions

safe for swimming. Beyond them, in both directions,
conditions change, maybe rocks or too strong an undertow

below the surface. Are you sure it’s safe, she asks.
It is, at least for now, I reply. Now—

with its crests and froth and salt
rushing toward us—covers our feet, our ankles,

we aren’t too far out yet. You are still young enough
to lift over as it comes. Again, you exclaim. Again, now comes

from ahead of us, another wave
right behind this one, an onslaught

that shivers you with panic and glee. I look left,
then right, imagine the flags framing not a stretch of beach

but of time, demarcating where the past
becomes now and leaves for at least

2º of warming. The flag to my right is about 50 yards away,
we move toward it, in dashes

I pencil on the wall above your head, my hand
touching your hair, which tastes of salt

when I kiss it, when my lips become suffused with the same now
I look back on as though it were another life.

This poem is from Christopher Kondrich’s forthcoming book, Tread Upon.