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.
Emerge Literary Journal 