Encounter With A Creature Poem by Kim Barney

Santa Barbara, California.
Summer of nineteen eighty, late July.
The beach was beautiful, sand smooth
and almost white. A perfect day.

Sun, surf, and sand. Swimmers splashing
and frolicking in the gently rolling waves.
Seagulls screaming, seeking some scraps
of something they can eat.

Chest-deep was I in wonderful water,
allowing the waves to lift me up
and carry me for several yards
like just another stick of driftwood.

Feet free from the bottom of the ocean
as the wave picked me up and then
feeling contact as the current
deposits me again.

Suddenly something different happens
when I come back down:
my feet land on something squirmy
instead of touching solid ground.

Some live creature; I could feel it,
though I knew not what it was;
it resented being stepped on
and I knew that just because

of a sudden, sharp pain hits me
right on the top of my left foot;
feels like I've been cut by razor
and I know this can't be good.

Make my way out of the water,
stumble up the beach and then
notice blood that trickles out of
hole the size of fountain pen.

What has happened? Who can tell me?
'Round me gathers group of men.
One says, 'I know; you have managed
to meet a stingray, my friend.'

Hospital was not that helpful;
antidote they had not one.
'Take some Advil, grin and bear it,
for this night will not be fun.'

They were right; it was not pleasant;
leg swelled up to twice its size.
On the morrow I felt better
and it left me much more wise.

Now I know that I should shuffle
feet while walking in the sea,
thus avoiding coming down on
something else that might stab me.