Читать книгу Wicked Enchantment - Wanda Coleman - Страница 15

associations: years of being ashamed/my sometimes

fat, ordinary body. years later shame passed

left a sad aftertaste. mama threatening to beat me if i got

my hair wet. curses as she brushes the sand out, “it’s gonna

break it off—it’s gonna ruin your scalp.”

or the tall blond haired gold/bronze-muscled

lifeguards who played with the little white ones but gawked

at us like we were lepers

sound. the water serpent’s breath: a depth as vast as my hatred

skin. my chocolate coating. the rash gone now

as a kid i couldn’t stand the drying effect water had

coming out wet, cracked and sore all over. one time

i caught a starfish, second summer after my divorce

“i’m not into beaches, or riding waves these days.” the only time

i like the beach is when it’s cold hostile and gray. i feel

kin to it then. or at night. when it speaks a somber tongue

only the enlightened perceive. when the ageless mouth joins

mine. when soft arms caress in timeworn gentleness. or the

poor man’s beach, where bodies echo my chromatic scheme

from just-can-pass to pitch-tar-black. at home among fleshy

rumps, tummys, thighs,

breasts jiggling a freedom our hearts will never know

sound. eternal splash. a depth as vast as my love

beached. i turn into the blanket. urge him to fuck me. he

thinks it’s corny. i get mad. i get up, stomp away, kicking

the sand . . . while he was with her i was on

the beach wishing he was with me . . . at the beach

aware of his hands urgent to touch, take me before we

return to work/our separate lives . . . here. i watch

you swim into the crest. i’d rather sit and sip wine

enjoy the wind than swim or wade. i smile secretly

at thinly clad slappers-on of lotion/a potion to ward off

skin cancer. in my fantasy i would challenge the ocean

a feminist ahab stalking the great white whale. harpoon it

and ride down down to meet davy jones, content

for my america dies with me

sound. swoosh swoosh the scythe. a depth as vast as my vision

i could live by it, pacifica. learn to like it. now that you’re

with me i might even let you teach me how to tread water