On a Mission for This Reprieve
Janet Kuypers
2/6/24
I must have looked like I was on a mission,
wearing a full-body wetsuit at a bay in Oahu
that I still cannot remember the name of —
I wore this suit, but the weather was perfect,
and I was only snorkeling anyway. “Whatever
you do, don’t swim out past the reef line,”
they told me as I absentmindedly nodded
in agreement, squirming in my wetsuit to just
get into the water. I jumped in like a dolphin
(that you can actually see in Oahu year ‘round),
made my way through the water until I spotted
large, round, disc-like, perfectly, psychotically
blue, I mean, I’m talking glow-in the-dark blue,
fish... and I swam with them until I was way past
that reef. Well... so much for my listening.
The Oahu water had a different feel altogether
when you only walked over it on the Seventh
of December 2001, on the 60-year anniversary
of the attack on Pearl Harbor — the Memorial
constructed over the hull of the USS Arizona,
sunken on that day that will live in infamy.
Walk outside on that narrow bridge, and like me,
you might see grieving family still dropping
flowers into the water for loved ones still there,
flowers breaking the fluidity of the bubbling oil
that still rises from this now underwater tomb.
After all this water you’ll need relief, in the
only U.S. state that has interstate highways
no one can explain the reason for (they are
interstates to which state exactly), but maybe
find peace in a bamboo forest, or even visit
a Japanese restaurant for dinner, just to enjoy
a separate room with seats on the floor for
your party, with sliding doors the waitstaff
opens while on their knees. You might need
this reprieve, so, take a moment, and breathe.
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