Blue burned through the sky of gray erasing restless of malaise and deferring examen of the deeper questions with more than surface answers.
World warmed bright under sun, and they went out upon the water. Fast of the boat, blow of the wind in whip and rustle through clothes and hair, sounds and sensations in the speed—he dismissed the deeper questions that had unsettled him before finding familiarity and comfort in the shallows of lake channel, fleeing from philosophies and challengings of faith.
In boat’s race and ride, Anna wore white throw in cover of body, her hair back tight in ponytail drawn tight and smooth—sheened in the high May sun—in controlling from wind’s whip in race of the boat.
In race and speed and sense through the shallows, she mused on deeper questions still—thoughts hid in cover under sunglass shaded eyes that saw both world in passing by and, too, opened interior rooms of her private soul.
They anchored in cove away from the crowds and swam in in the lake’s cool waters. Anchor set, she removed her throw. Underneath, she wore yellow bikini over long straight of frame and curves of her hips and breasts; her forearms tanned from time in sun and the rest of her body light, first time exposed in summer season’s way.
She felt the warmth and tinge of light to fair of new-shown skin and knew that she would burn—not badly, but enough for tan’s begin—skin and body’s summer way.
In the water, they floated on noodles and seats of life preserves drinking drinks that sometimes sharpened, and sometimes dulled the mind—never knowing which until it lived.
Bright of sun, beauty of day become of beginning’s gray, she thought still upon the deeper questions in examen of interior rooms opened in their asking. Parallel to time and mind, they day-drank on noodles and preserves in waters of the shallow.
Short of words, they enjoyed their company—found solitude amidst, but away from the crowd—as minds and spirits floated at different depths and levels.
She felt burn of sun on her shoulder tops. Rest of her body covered in clouding color of water depth.
Together, silent, they floated in muse—distant but close—until restless arose of the quiet and they needed again to move: fast and wind and whip of sound that abated examen and aided forgetting of the rest.
Rising from water, from kneel to stand on back deck of boat and step over transom into boat’s main body, water ran from her body—dripped from yellow at high legs’ split. She caught his eyes in find and stare and knew she was adored; breathless of his lungs at sight and pause in empty before expand of fill and take again; struck in moment’s sight and see.
She knew and sensed his pang, smiling and laughing in standing tall after traverse of transom’s wall, wringing ponytail in hands as sun fell warm again over whole of her body raised from shallow’s cover; yellow color’s bright bold in match of the high-shine sun.
She savored sense of the gentle singe and knew that she was changing. Unwearing of cover in return to drive, she bore herself in free for full of sensation in experience as they took again in speed: wind and air over summer-bared skin, ponytail’s dry and whip in wind—alive in race and sense of shallows and evade of deeper waters.