DIANA ROSEN

Water Sports

Lolling in the bath, I remember
your arms around me, your palms
atop my thighs
your body pressing my back
seeking softness awaiting you.
Lifting me backwards
you drape me onto your floating body
your hands covering my breasts.
My feet dangle
in chlorine-scented waters
as we sandwich together until
gently broadsided
— a wayward raft —
Suddenly awakened,
I soar through aquamarine light
gaze at your face
half surprised, half amused
thoroughly distracted:

Floatus interruptus.

“Water Sports” previously appeared on http://www.softcartel.com May 24, 2018.

Look at the View!

A wizened West Virginia woman is asked why
she stays in the unforgiving mountains with no
fertile earth for food, snow-paralyzed roads, and
(of course) no jobs. Her face softens to youth: “It’s
so pretty in the springtime when the dogwood blooms.”

Three elderly women, sitting on a wooden bench, chirp away
about his sleeping in the park, cluck-cluck about his ‘Misfortune’.
Rolling onto his side to face the blue-gray Pacific stillness
splashed hot pink from the setting sun, the man snorts,
“Who’s the fool here, ladies?”

So eager am I to touch earth, smell the sweetness of blooms,
connect to something, I stand here watering a tabletop of plants
bought from a commercial nursery with a maxed-out credit card,
imagine the nonstop thrum of traffic is the roar of high tide
pounding the shore below me.

Diana Rosen is a poet, flash writer and essayist whose work appears in online and print journals including Rattle, As It Ought to be Magazine, and Tiferet Journal among others. To read more of her work, please visit authory.com/dianarosen