Tipton Poetry Journal
At The Ocean
Anne Whitehouse A soft breeze blows through my baggy clothes, awakening my skin like a lover. Every leaf and blade of grass is in motion, every nodding wildflower beckons me to the cove, where the sea washes over the rocks, and the wet sand is printed with the tracks of waterbirds. The tide is coming in, and I am almost too late to swim out to the rock I have always swum to— carpeted with soft seaweeds, purple and green, that I hold onto like Rapunzel’s hair, and climb until I stand up free in the air as the day I was born. Soon the rock will be buried in the dark sea. But I find my balance, grip the seaweeds with my toes, while the cold water washes over my ankles and splashes my shins. Anne Whitehouse lives in New York City and is the author of poetry collections: The Surveyor’s Hand, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, Meteor Shower, Outside from the Inside, and Steady, as well as the art chapbooks, Surrealist Muse (about Leonora Carrington), Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, and Being Ruth Asawa. Her latest chapbook, Adrienne Fidelin Restored , was published this year. She is the author of a novel, Fall Love. Her poem, “Lady Bird,” won the Nathan Perry DAR 2023 “Honoring American History” poetry contest. She has lectured about Longfellow and Poe at the Wadsworth Longfellow House in Portland, Maine, and Longfellow House Washington Headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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