34-37 Degrees South: Easy reading version
34-37 Degrees South digital anthology Easy reading version
34-37 Degrees South digital anthology
Easy reading version
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If…<br />
Myfanwy Hudson<br />
If you stay too long in the sea<br />
The mermaids will take you, her cousin said,<br />
A bored babysitter, fourteen.<br />
Reluctantly, she exited, four and in love<br />
With wave width,<br />
Sand texture<br />
in love with all that<br />
reliably rose and fell<br />
If you walk on the cliff rocks alone<br />
The men will take you, her mother said.<br />
Instead, she brought a kitchen knife<br />
and clambered along capricious cliffs<br />
Seventeen, in love with all that was<br />
Predictably harsh, in love with a<br />
A cadence of crest and crash.<br />
If you bring a towel,<br />
we’ll be more comfortable, the boy said.<br />
Twenty-one and agreeable,<br />
she lay in the Scarborough alcove<br />
hidden but exposed.<br />
Twenty-one and watching beyond him<br />
Wanting the salt on her skin<br />
Her body submerged<br />
As the shallows consumed her.<br />
If she leaves now, she thinks<br />
She will arrive before the families,<br />
Thirty-nine and sensible she arrives at dawn<br />
Seeking solace, she wades into the North Beach rock pools<br />
A hermit crab peers from its jagged crevice,<br />
Watching, not judging<br />
As she floats on her back<br />
As the rising sky blinds her<br />
and the ocean becomes her.<br />
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