Broken Ocean
Imagine the seashore riddled with gaps,
like an invisible chip on the rim of a glass
going unnoticed until it meets your finger seeking atonal harmonies. Each hole a thick void,
each a woven image of an empty loom on a deserted Ithaca, each vision of land on the horizon becomes a narcotic,
vain. In vein. Euphoria that cuts you at the knees, sends you kneeling to the sun hot sand, presses your tongue
and teeth to the grit of it, scrapes saccharine intricacies into your enamel. Until you turn to static, an infinite loop
of white ooze. Sound and shock trailing from the chapped lips of a conch shell. A snail’s eviction notice. An iridescent
liminal space. The catch and release of all expectations, the suspension of a steel anchor over tranquil water.
Katrina Smolinsky is a lesbian poet from the Olympic Peninsula. She is a second-year MFA candidate at The College of Charleston and a graduate of The Evergreen State College.
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