That morning on the television we watched one young Chinese man halt a military tank in Tiananmen Square. In his thin white T-shirt, his arms over his head, standing still, he stopped an army. And we watched him from the living room of a borrowed sea cottage, the tops of our feet red, our shoulders tender from the sun. In the afternoon, the sun high and hot, we trolled the beach for sand dollars. Wind in our ears, eyes tearing in the heat. When we came to rocks near a stony pier that lengthened, away from us, into the lines of warm waves, I took the camera from my bag, let it look at you in ways I never dared: your nipples and armpits, navel, knees, the dark hair at the nape of your spine, beard two days old, the hollow of your neck, ribs against skin when you raised your arms—implausible, resolute. You walked toward the water; I watched you untie the string on your suit, shuck it from your hips and thighs, your back to me, the crescent shadow between your buttocks—an easy extension of the freckled line on your spine. You swam out, turned up, face to the sun, and lay still, the soles of your feet sinking, rising. I wanted the water to eat you whole, take you in its mouth, against its blunt tongues: a tinny sweetness the only residue. I sat and pulled my fingers through the damp sand, dragging into the earth the shallow outlines of a hundred tiny trails, all leading back to my hunched body. Afterward, we waded, feeling for the elusive shells with our toes, your dark hair dripping, sand caught in the curves of my ears. You mentioned the young Chinese who stopped the steel hulk of a tank with his gesture of resolution. I nodded my head and walked a little in front of you, deeper out, till the tips of my fingers dragged against the surface of the water.

Toby Emert.