and when it rains, I’ll run for cover under the oldest house with the loudest roof

The ship sank deep when it came off the tracks of the waves.
Just days before, she’d climbed on board his shoulders when his smile offered itself as a safe platform to step onto. They’d danced along the floorboards, as the belly of his boat slithered through caterpillar mangroves, past houses with held in whispers that hung like crooked teeth on slopes. The sea seemed so lazy, so she took off her shoes and sank into his muscles. She looked up at the grey sky in their eyes, unalarmed and was pleased she could smell the rain approaching. His lips always tasted better through it. The coffee in her mug grew cold and bitter as he turned his back on her, so she stumbled over the piled up baggage in the aisle to see out the window on the other side what could be causing it. It looked like winter. The rain had slowed and frozen into snow. She wasn’t afraid. She always understood where autumn went and why it came back, but he never did. Turn back that is. She could see now that his fingers were webbed and he was breathing through gills. The wind rushed up her bare legs as she stood there in his striped shirt and her feet felt soggy. She looked down at her toes, willing them to be fins.
She should have known better than to board a boat of paper, but she loved the feeling of drowning too much.