Beach Body

Previously Published in Ink & Nebula

If my body is the beach’s sand,

she can’t count how many waves have come.

She keeps checking the tide for tally marks, 

as if they’ve kept track of each touch.

My body bends to the will of the water,

unable to stop its steady ebb and flow.

She used to be familiar with its frequency,

only sometimes surprised by a surge.

But when my sand asked to be still, the ocean

said no. He said his waves weren’t done yet

and my body would have to wait, 

until he wanted to stop.

She tried to build sand dunes, but the swells

just got stronger. She screamed when dead fish

washed ashore, my sand a cemetery.

My body be the beach littered with cigarettes.

My body be the chemical waste catchall, 

my body be the dump, be the death, 

be my death. Be mine my body, be mine.

How can the sand let go of the sea?

I can only separate my sand from me,

can’t hold all these waves without drowning. 

I leave my sand at the ocean’s edge 

and fashion myself into the water, a body

I’ve always wanted to understand. 

But in the salt, oil spills choke fish

and large patches of plastic waste swim. 

So I ask my sand to meet me at the shore,

we haven’t seen each other in a while. 

I tell my sand I’m sorry for not wanting her,

sorry for staying away so long. She says

she missed me most during the sunrises.

I tell her we’ll soothe with sunsets. 

We’ll learn how to study the soft pinks of the sky, 

how to rest in the clouds close to heaven. 

We’ll learn to stop waiting for more waves.