Occasionally the sailor suspects a woman swims nude beneath his ship, though
when he dives into the water, he sees only white jellyfish opening and
closing like umbrellas. He is reminded of the time when he was a boy and
imagined ordinary stones were gems, lovely enough to win the heart of the
girl next door. But he never reached to pick one up. Instead he decided
the girl would never like him. The more he thought about her not liking
him, the more he grew to despise her and her adolescent beauty. The more he
despised her, the more he wanted to see her, to follow her, to sit just
behind her, and never let her out of his sight. That was the beginning of
the obsession. Evenings he stayed up late, peeking through his Venetian
blinds, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in her pink striped pajamas. Every
weeknight she stretched out on the lime green carpet in her living room and
did her homework in front of the flickering TV. The boy began to believe
that if he did not watch her, she might not do her homework. Then she might
do poorly in school and be mocked, and he would have to protect her. What
if he didn t know how? Better to be sure she did her work. But the more he
stared at her, the more beautiful she became, the more her skin softened,
and the silk of her hair awakened him from his dreams. He grew convinced
his eyes gave off a kind of glow that polished the girl, like an apple, that
she could never have been as lovely if he had not looked at her so
intensely. He even thought his staring might have been making her breasts
grow, just as the sun's heat caused fruit to ripen. That's when he realized
her beauty was a kind of death wish. Like a mirage, he thought. A mirage
of an oasis in the Sahara, something that could never satisfy his thirst.
No wonder years later he still saw her breasts in the middle of the sea. No
wonder he hated her.
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The Prose Poem