"Swell" by Michael Chin

That summer we took your father’s boat

Off the coast for sunsets we smoked and called it seaweed. We locked toes, gritty with sand and called it love. Sunkissed and spent we felt a swell. You swore you saw the slick of a giant squid. I thought it was a whale and understood how sailors centuries past could’ve sworn encounters with sea monsters, merfolk, magical things. Who’s to say what made waves beneath the surface?

Michael Chin was born and raised in Utica, New York and currently lives in Las Vegas with his wife and son. He is the author of three full-length short story collections and his debut novel, My Grandfather's an Immigrant and So is Yours came out from Cowboy Jamboree Press in 2021. Chin won the 2017-2018 Jean Leiby Chapbook Award from The Florida Review and Bayou Magazine’s 2014 James Knudsen Prize for Fiction. Find him online at miketchin.com and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.