September 2018
I’ve been writing a daily poem for more than six years. Many mornings, I find myself writing poems about my difficulty with writing poems and saying something new, one of my many obsessions. My poems are often an intersection of my history and today’s events. I hope to arrive at an unexpected insight.
Love Poem to Haulover Beach
On Sundays she performs her rituals:
lunch in a cooler, with ice, and water.
She loads the car with camp chair in a bag,
umbrella, backpack stuffed with books,
notebook, pens, towels. One hour’s drive
to Miami, long walk from parking lot—
one trip only with burdens all her own,
sureness stronger with each step.
Up the ramp to the top of the dune to see
where bathers sit on towels near the shore,
no one in a bathing suit because this
is nude, not lewd, not crude, a place to be
yourself without the heavy trappings
of designer clothes. No one’s asking
if you’re of the upper crust.
All the same here—bodies, shapes set free
at any age, nothing to hold in bellies
and boobs or hide fading tattoos of last
regrets. Just look. Bodies flawed like yours.
The prudes don’t show themselves
where skin is skin, not obscene.
On this patch of South Florida land,
she watches the parade of the unabashed
inside tanned bodies along the shore.
Turquoise water breaks on shells and sand.
© 2018 Joan Mazza
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