How Did the Ocean Find You?

October 20, 2024  •  2 Comments

How did the ocean find you?

That one time—do you remember?

At 11pm,

Under a round and tender moon

Dripping kaleidoscope light onto a black sea?

Lapping a beach that is sometimes sandy,

Sometimes rocky,

Depending on the season?

 

I could say something here 

About how the world dances with itself. 

Waltzing between molecules, 

Some resting, 

Some leading, 

Some swept off their feet.

But we already knew that. 

 

I'd rather, instead,

Let the midnight ocean

Caress a 24-year-old girl

Whose feet have become the latest curiosity

On the sandy floor. 

 

I'd rather taste salty lips,

And if I could do it again for the first time, 

I would. 

But I'll settle for the second

And the third

And the fourth.

(All the first in their own ways, anyway.)

 

And I'd rather climb an empty lifeguard tower

(Which actually may have been 

A rocket ship to the moon)

And take in the twinkling view

And the whooshing waves

And the unfolding wind

Through computational senses that may,

For all I know,

Be portals

Where outside and inside

Stream into one.

 


 


Comments

cleve hicks(non-registered)
Hauntingly beautiful.
Valerie(non-registered)
Hi Monica! I am a picture editor at The New York Times. One of my colleagues may have reached out to you about a photograph you took of grieving chimps and submitted to National Geographic many years ago. We have an upcoming review for a new book about how animals understand death, and we would love to use your photo to accompany the review. Would you be willing to let us publish it? We pay a fee for one-time use photos. Please let me know as soon as you can — the review will publish Tuesday night. Thank you so much! You can email me at the address I provided when I wrote this comment.
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