Photo of a Girl on a Beach

Once when I was harmless

and didn’t know any better,

a mirror to the front of me

and an ocean behind,

I lay wedged in the middle of daylight,

paper-doll thin, dreaming,

then I vanished. I gave the day a fingerprint,

then forgot.

I sat naked on a towel

on a hot June Monday.

The sun etched the inside of my eyelids,

while a boy dozed at my side.

The smell of all oceans was around us—

steamy salt, shell, and sweat,

but I reached for the distant one.

A tide rose while I slept,

and soon I was alone. Try being

a figure in memory. It’s hollow there.

For truth’s sake, I’ll say she was on a beach

and her eyes were closed.

She was bare in the sand, long,

and the hour took her bit by bit.

--Carmen Gimenez Smith