ANDRENA ZAWINSKI
Beached Here

(First Summer Apart)


I want to tell you something
as waves spin the shelly sand,
slap and slosh against the barnacles
and green slick of moss on the jetty rail.
I am glistening here in this high noon heat
where gulls careen and skim the shore for food,

And I want to tell you
in crone calls darting between the spin
and dive of splashy kites that I am
peppered by your promises riddling
my head. I want to tell you in this long
day of days lost, that I am beached here
with the memory of you, your dark eyes,
the way the salty spray collected
on your cheek and shimmered.

I want to tell you something
as water retreats further from the shore,
further from all our Delmarva summers,
tell you there were wild ponies
on Assateaque today, dusty hair like yours
matted with barbs of myrtle, pine, and dust,
grazing in the long weeds mindless
of porpoise sounding our horizon.

I want to tell you I've stayed
too long in the sun again,
that a seabreeze soothes the heat
beating down. I want to tell you
something, as the thought of you digs in
spiny sharp along my new layer of skin.

MARILYN BATES
Slice of Life

At eighty, you still please a man and quip about it,
something you learned over the years with my father,
a little favor, you call it,
because you know how it is with men.

Even when the guys at work taunted,
a husband never misses a slice from a cut loaf,
you saved yourself for nights he wanted more of you,
more of those checks you earned,
clerking at the welfare office,
a penny for that pound of flesh you gave
when all the men moved up
and you were left behind with claimant lines
spread before you like that deck of cards you called a life.

Hot summers in our stone cellar,
you stood over the harvest, shucking peas in the colander,
pots of tomatoes popping skins in the boiling water,
like your skin, popping with the sweat of canning,
forking raviolis for the night meal.
But it was never enough enough to keep him home.
You were only good for one thing,
always ready when he wanted.

Funny, you can joke about it,
call sex, just part of your job,
your old knee giving out as you give in
to the new man in your life. Now, it's only a sliver
of yourself you give, the slice, you say, men never miss..