In this one,
you are standing on the beach with your sisters. Five
ruby-lipped brunettes
too young to think of storms.
Link your arms.
Dig your feet
into sand that sinks. Fight the sound of raging winds
that barrel in off the Atlantic.
Laugh your throat dry.
Give the Ocean Hell.
The sea-weed strewn about your ankles:
it is silk, not slime.
Too young for storms. In this one,
glide your wrinkled hand, nail-polish chipped
and pink, across the faces years wore down.
Say their names. Feel pearls roll smooth in your mouth.
Think not of death, the solitude
of white
plaster walls. Echoes down the hall
from an invalid - hear them not.
Laugh your throat dry. Give the ocean hell.
You are too young for calm seas,
for the splatter crash dance
undulating fire
of sunsets that smolder to lavender and cream.
Keep your back to the sea, in this one vulnerable day
that wanes and sucks
its ocean down -
cold water down
the bathtub's drain,
and when you bathe, the sponge that moves
itself on you - not soap:
Sea-Foam. Don't close your eyes.
The hands that lift you to your bed
are not hands at all. They are schools of fish.
Shame that burns your cheeks red
brings navy to your sunken eyes
isn't shame at all. It is sunburn
and soft bruise. In this one,
you were too young. You are too young
for storms:
the splinters from a coral reef,
the salt that stings your skin.
The pain subsides by slow degrees.
You give the Ocean Hell.
***
Rachel Bennett is 20 years old and is from Verona, NJ. In 2006, she received the following awards through Rutgers for poetry: the Academy of American Poets College & University Prize, the Evelyn Hamilton Award, the Julia Carlie Prize, and the Edna Herzberg Prize. My short stories, poetry, and artwork have appeared in the following magazines: The Caellian, Objet d'art, The Podium, and The Mosaic. She is entering her senior year at Rutgers University in New Brunswick where she majors in English with a focus in Creative Writing. She is on the Dean's List and has been on the staff of two on-campus magazines. Her e-mail address is rsbennet@eden.rutgers.edu.
