Block Island
The break in the clouds
reminds us
it isn’t supposed
to be this dark.
Still, black cows
disappear into the brush,
their white snouts nodding
against the coming blindness.
Below, teenaged laughter
hijacks the echo
of crashing waves,
tumbles gracelessly
into the dunes and
scales the bluff to the lawn,
to our bare feet pressed
against the porch rail.
A beach fire burns the horizon.
You reach for my hand.
“Come on in the water!”
a girl calls from the sea.
Just like all the girls
to boys before her.
Just like that scene in Jaws
before the first swim.
by Beth Anne Cooke-Cornell
Twitter: @BACookeCornell
Editor’s Note: This poem’s deceptively simple imagery grows darker with rereading. The last two lines resonate darker each time.
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