By James Brown
You yearn so much
you could be a yacht.
Your mind has already
set sail. It takes a few days
to arrive
at island pace,
but soon you are barefoot
on the sand,
the slim waves testing
your feet
like health professionals.
You toe shells, sea glass, and odd things
that have drifted for years
and finally
washed up here.
You drop your towel
and step out of
your togs, ungainly,
first
your right foot, then
the other
stepping down
the sand
to stand
in the water.
There is no discernible
difference
in temperature.
You breaststroke in
the lazy blue.
A guy passing in a rowboat
says, “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
And it is. Your body
afloat in salt
as if cured.
Source: Poetry (February 2018)
Poet Bio
More Poems about Living
if time is queer/and memory is trans/and my hands hurt in the cold/then
there are ways to hold pain like night follows day
not knowing how tomorrow went down.
it hurts like never when the always is now,
the now that time won't allow.
there is no manner of tomorrow, nor shape of today
only like always having...
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money....
More Poems about Nature
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money....
A Wing and a Prayer
We thought the birds were singing louder. We were almost certain they
were. We spoke of this, when we spoke, if we spoke, on our zoom screens
or in the backyard with our podfolk. Dang, you hear those birds? Don’t
they sound loud?...