It was one of those mornings when nothing 
was wrong, and nothing right 
either. Which is a fair way to describe 
my marriage at the time. 
Safe, was how I put it to friends. 
We arrived as the fog was lifting off the water. 
I wore a red string bikini. 
You could see my nipples through the openings 
but only if you looked closely. 
We could have made wild, crazy love 
behind the dunes. Or burst 
our lungs singing to the departing moon. 
I didn’t step on any sharp stones or jellyfish. 
But neither did I find any shells that weren’t broken. 
When I spotted a shark’s tooth in the sand 
I hoped it was an omen. 
We are always trying to break through 
into something else. 
Barnacles clung to the sides of a tide pool. 
I reached down to touch the seaweed 
that swayed amber in the shadows. 
I’d read that barnacles wait for the ocean 
to bring them what they need. Even 
if they’re starving, they keep on waiting. 
Their shells show no sign of their slow dying. 

Laura Ann Reed,

a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley before working as a leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, and Britain, for example: Loch Raven, MacQueen’s Quinterly, One Art, SWWIM, The Ekphrastic Review, The Grey Sparrow, and Willawaw, among others. She is the author of the chapbook Shadows Thrown (Sungold Editions, 2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

Author’s website: https://www.lauraannreedpoet.com/