Contributor: JL Smith

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Salt filled air,
heavy with humidity,
holding it all together,
like a water heater blanket.

My composure firm,
as long as the seagulls’ cries
don’t remind me of tears,
dead starfish,
how one decision could have such a fatal cost,
how a lifeless jellyfish could foretell
a future of one who stayed too long
in the wrong place.

I stand in silence
waiting for you
and the high tide
to sweep it all away.


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JL Smith lives in Odenton, MD. She is the author of two books of poetry, Medusa, The Lost Daughter and Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls.