When I Finally Wrote a Love Poem
It Went Like This--
It’s strange when the sea is no longer a postcard.
But someday arrives. You open the door of the dark
to find an ocean, waiting like
there’s no one else expected to arrive.
It’s as if— we’ve left the seaside tavern by foot.
The park, closed. The unlit walkway,
covered in wet sand. Water reaches
the rails, churns under the narrow bridge.
We stand over the creek that feeds the bay.
It’s a matter of time before the footpath floods.
Everything, a matter of time. On other nights
I might imagine all things feeding the dark,
sharp shells and broken bottles swirling
below. How we have suffered from my
imagination, its inundations. But it’s strange.
On this night, the darkness reminds me
what was meant by future.
And we remember to hold hands again.
The water heaves itself over the sheets of sand.
Eerie blue beings, smallest of light forms,
ride along the long lips of the waves. The dark,
stretching shoulders. On this night, the incandescent
creatures offer their single cells as one blue-green light.
Rising and falling forward to the start, back to the end,
the waters insist, like the humors of old. Some
promises hold you steady so you’re never lost or ready
to return. It’s as if—I wrote a poem about us, the
luminescence. I hope you like how it goes—like this.
A Michigan native, Jessica Cohn has made homes in Illinois, New York, and most recently California. Gratitude Diary, the award-winning first poetry collection from this long-time nonfiction writer, follows an arc from regret to illumination—from broken islands to the medicine creek. For more information, please see jessicacohn.net
It Went Like This--
It’s strange when the sea is no longer a postcard.
But someday arrives. You open the door of the dark
to find an ocean, waiting like
there’s no one else expected to arrive.
It’s as if— we’ve left the seaside tavern by foot.
The park, closed. The unlit walkway,
covered in wet sand. Water reaches
the rails, churns under the narrow bridge.
We stand over the creek that feeds the bay.
It’s a matter of time before the footpath floods.
Everything, a matter of time. On other nights
I might imagine all things feeding the dark,
sharp shells and broken bottles swirling
below. How we have suffered from my
imagination, its inundations. But it’s strange.
On this night, the darkness reminds me
what was meant by future.
And we remember to hold hands again.
The water heaves itself over the sheets of sand.
Eerie blue beings, smallest of light forms,
ride along the long lips of the waves. The dark,
stretching shoulders. On this night, the incandescent
creatures offer their single cells as one blue-green light.
Rising and falling forward to the start, back to the end,
the waters insist, like the humors of old. Some
promises hold you steady so you’re never lost or ready
to return. It’s as if—I wrote a poem about us, the
luminescence. I hope you like how it goes—like this.
A Michigan native, Jessica Cohn has made homes in Illinois, New York, and most recently California. Gratitude Diary, the award-winning first poetry collection from this long-time nonfiction writer, follows an arc from regret to illumination—from broken islands to the medicine creek. For more information, please see jessicacohn.net
