From BAMBOO RIDGE Issue Number 60, Winter 1994, New Moon

Triggers for June:

1. I'm never doing this again
2. when we could not see each other
3. like a chain-reaction
4. speechless and angry
5. don't you understand?
6. wiseass
7. if you can't say something nice
8. the sky's the limit

“Body Surfer,” by Susan M. Schultz

Thinking's a disease I want
no cure from: it's like catching
a wave and then wanting another
until all the waves are one
and you recognize the sameness
of religion and good fun, the
seeking and desiring and amplitude
it offers the wayfarer or body
surfer; the wave is hollow,
hallowed, and I thought I saw
infinite concern in the face
of a boy who answered my call
for help, not with help but
an image of love that could
have been my last. Crisis forms
us, but cataclysm's a hard thing
to believe in; seismographs
enjoy straight lines as much
as we, I presume — though when
the surf's up, those with
pakalolo eyes march toward it
with holy purpose, propose
to fly in it, like bees
in pollen-rich air, and take
solace from its danger, mad
recognition the line's there
to be crossed, and you're
crossing it, traversing its lip,
a verb lost in ocean syntax,
plummeting down wave-cliffs
like beads from some rosary
cupped in an old woman's palm,
the palms at stray angles
from the shore, wind a double-
agent, giving and taking away,
as one, lost in the embrace
of back-wash, safe again, makes
ready to go back for more.

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