Stephanie Barbé Hammer

PINK BIKINI

After a hard Midwest grad school winter
I go with my parents
To see my grandparents
In the Hamptons there’s a pink
Bikini in a shop window
Try it on
My mother says I am broke so
She pays by having my
Father pay.
How can such small apparel be
A sign? I wear
That bathing suit
At a beach in Long island
And know good times
Are coming
Not right away
But the tide is rising
Somewhere I stand in the breakers
And can almost see you

BEACH HAIKU

When I was fifteen
Older boys called me “New York”
Virginia Beach ruled

When I was eighteen
He promised me Swedish shores
Malmö broke us up

Twenty at Jones Beach
A handsome guy’s just leaving
Sad wait for the bus

Twenty-six in Cannes
You’re supposed to be topless
Awkward with students

I turn seventy
We’re ex-New Yorker beach bums
Strolling SoCal sands

Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a 7-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, The Gold Man Review and Raven’s Perch. She is working on a new novel with her husband Larry Behrendt. They live in Santa Barbara and can walk to two different coffee shops and two different taverns.