The Beach House, a sestina
Colette Hope Marks is a graduate creative writing student at Southern New Hampshire University.
We chose the beach house to winter
ourselves from summer
and then the raking of leaves
and to keep the marriage far from the rocks.
The road to the ocean has an incessant wind
bringing nausea in waves
We arrive to welcome fresh air and the sound of crashing waves
that'll grow fiercer in winter
responding to the storms and the wind
and calming again next summer
allowing for rest near the rocks
when time comes again for us to take our leaves
We awaken the next morning needing coffee, he leaves.
I sit waiting on the balcony while surfers do waves
near merciless rocks
that the tide would bring them closer to in winter
but it's summer
and they are pushed the other way by a gentle morning wind
And I wonder what it's like, the wind
and the water, to push your arms like leaves
bristling in the breeze of summer
standing on waves
and then crashing like the avalanche we had last winter
