From 'The Double' Vii Poem by Morgan Michaels

The waves coursed shore-ward like bison in a herd. Except they were sickly green and shaggy with yellow foam, not black-umber. Just above the horizon, the sky was edged silverpink. Overall, the ocean was unwell-looking. It had an expressionistic cast- a just-before-the-breakdown look about it. Sizable waves rose on either side of the craft and respectfully subsided, as if it were the chariot of Poseidon East. The world held its breath, except for the wind winnowing their hair, grimacing their faces and the snapping of the bow ensign.

They were in a motorboat, speeding toward shore. Or, sometimes, in parallel to it. The motor kicked up a wake of chrome-colored foam: Milton Avery-white, observed Langley, to distract himself.The boat rocketed and leapt over the gray-green sea, which was storm-lit, as the sun was covered at times by whorls of racing cloud. Langley looked over his shoulder at the cataracts of rain suspended in a horizon-wide column of cloud. At least, the sky appeared to contain that sort of watery colloid. Two miles off gleamed the roof of the livery, and safe harbor.

Trying to sound calm, Langley shouted, against the wind:

'It's catching up! Can't we go faster'?

The storm was boiling in pursuit, like it had a beef.

Miggi manned the throttle. He was an expert skipper.

'We're going as fast as we can! We can't go any faster', he shouted, above the roar.

His words were largely snatched away by the wind.

Langley didn't really want to go faster. Speed came at the price of noise and the risk of getting bounced overboard.

It was a bad idea, thought Langley, to go out. At that time. On that day, when everyone else had retreated inland, deferring to instinct and advisory. He regretted the journalistic impulse that drove them. For what? To take pictures? Now, they couldn't change the channel. This was real. He took responsibility for his whim, his hubris-tic denial of Nature's power. Would they become its victims? This wasn't a Hollywood movie that would end with a list of credits you could read before filing off to dinner.

Miggi had taken the challenge. Sardonically, he always agreed to Langley's whims- to a point this wasn't beyond. He was like a cab-driver who watches your face in the rear-view mirror, hoping to see it flinch, as he speeds and weaves in and out of traffic.