to know
my body: the perpetual scent of
gardenia, blood, the white sea;
to put
your tongue to my crevices
is to taste the imprint
of large bodies
heaving, dulling my nos
like water against hot sand.
i go to dark beaches
to occupy a space
where unfeeling is a thing
that floats in the ether
like a kite with the longest string––
blown about
by my desperate running
i tug and tug, but my hands
are just so small
my bones like driftwood,
too light to steady me.
i never learned
how to use my mouth
so i let my limbs be rearranged
in the empty space
traded one coast for another
but it’s just one more button,
discarded shirt, stranded bra
on the rug––
it’s a ‘smile’ and click
and i’m shuttered
on this balcony with its salted
air;
in another timeline i’d topple over
the railing
splinter at the edge of this cragged
canyon, just to escape
the man with the camera
and his oil-spill tongue.
i’m not pretty, i never was
but i wonder
if i will always see myself
as some small
shivering weed
at the edge of this coastal road,
plucked and preened
sun-spotted, that
bends away from the light
and open palms;
rather, i close like an eyelid
against the sun,
long days and things
close the soft center of my body
like a mollusk’s
against swooping gulls
and my own rotting flesh;
i cling here,
at the edge of this foaming water
tethered by my longing
for the bottom
of my own breath
Savannah Jensen is a poet and freelance writer from Sonoma County, California. She has a BA in English from UCLA and has work published in Pink Plastic House literary journal. When she’s not writing, she enjoys baking, making music, and photographing the people and places she loves.
