No one saw the tide take me.

One moment I was belly-deep in it,

and then curled inside

 

a vortex & too young to know

I should have panicked.

Portal, the eyewall of a current

 

snug enough to accommodate

a small girl. Transience,

the perfect name for a shade of

 

malleable pink, as in eggshell

broken and cobbled, as in

the shoreline I was undoing

 

one wet fistful at a time.

Heaven was a turquoise realm

reeling in a vista opposite

 

of lounge chairs and Coppertone.

I was sure of it. I was five

and didn’t know how to say—

 

Let me let go.

 

 

 

 

 

 ∝

Laura Sobbott Ross is the author of several poetry collections, including To the Patron Saint of Wayward Daughters. A resident of Florida, US, she was the Lake County library system’s inaugural poet laureate.