Thirst for Salt

by Madelaine Lucas

I suppose I’d been playing, the way I did sometimes when I was out there alone—making arcs, pointing my feet like a dancer— because in the water I could love my body the way I never did on land.

Unrequited love is still love, he said. But it’s never a great love. Can’t be. It’s one-sided. Except in the case of the ocean. For the ocean, we can make an exception.