Beaches. Why I Don’t Care For Them

associations: years of being ashamed/my sometimes
fat, ordinary body. years later shame passed
left a sad aftertaste. mama threatening to beat me if i got
my hair wet. curses as she brushes the sand out, “it’s gonna
break it off—it’s gonna ruin your scalp.”
or the tall blond haired gold/bronze-muscled
lifeguards who played with the little white ones but gawked at us like we were lepers
sound. the water serpent’s breath: a depth as vast as my hatred
skin. my chocolate coating. the rash gone now
as a kid i couldn’t stand the drying effect water had
coming out wet, cracked and sore all over. one time
i caught a starfish, second summer after my divorce
“i’m not into beaches, or riding waves these days.” the only time
i like the beach is when it’s cold hostile and gray. i feel
kin to it then. or at night. when it speaks a somber tongue
only the enlightened perceive. when the ageless mouths joins
mine. when soft arms caress in timeworn gentleness. or the
poor man’s beach, where bodies echo my chromatic scheme
from just-can-pass to pitch-tar-black. at home among fleshy
rumps, tummys, thighs,
breasts jiggling a freedom our hearts will never know
sound. eternal splash. a depth as vast as my love
beached. i turn into the blanket. urge him to fuck me. he
thinks it’s corny. i get mad. i get up, stomp away, kicking
the sand . . . while he was with her i was on
the beach wishing he was with me . . . at the beach
aware of his hands urgent to touch, take me before we
return to work/our separate lives . . . here. i watch
you swim into the crest. i’d rather sit and sip wine
enjoy the wind than swim or wade. i smile secretly
at thinly clad slappers-on of lotion/a potion to ward off
skin cancer. in my fantasy i would challenge the ocean
a feminist ahab stalking the great white whale. harpoon it
and ride down to meet davy jones, content
for my america dies with me
sound. swoosh swoosh the scythe. a depth as vast as my vision
i could live by it, pacifica. learn to like it. now that you’re
with me i might even let you teach me how to tread water

Wanda Coleman, “Beaches. Why I Don’t Care For Them” from Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems. Copyright © 2020 by Wanda Coleman. Reprinted by permission of The Estate of Wanda Coleman, Black Sparrow / David R Godine, Publisher, Inc., godine.com.

Source: Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems (Black Sparrow Press (Godine), 2020)