Freshwater Literary Journal 2022

Reed Venrick Foggy Night off Marathon Key One Windward across the island tonight, a rare chill in this gusty Atlantic breeze.

I grab my parka and turn my little dinghy to the side to block the wind, then cast another line, but so far only catching the incoming tide under a night of slurry, foggy stars and lapping waves, nagging at me, slapping the side of my inflated rubber craft that I keep in sight of home.

I gaze beyond the mystery of oceans and hear my own words before they speak: “Watch your buoy, mate, you may lose faith in your compass with that fog bank drifting in from the mangrove thicket, east of Mullet Sound and best not forget those oyster beds that once sliced the port side during that 2017 hurricane.”

I nudge on round the dark, foggy island, I call it Bantam Key. What’s it matter what the tourist maps say? I’m the one out here most nights and sometimes days when I don’t need to dock for supplies. But now from the south, cumulus clouds moving in low from Cuba, and behind, a yellow moon waning, soon to dip into the Gulf of Mexico, as I suddenly hear a weird noise, then duck to avoid a pelican gliding too low, landing so close, I feel the spray of cold, salt water.

If the fog doesn’t mush up more, I’ll linger on past the 2 a.m. hour—maybe even 169