Laurel Benjamin
The California Coast
Laurel Benjamin
The California
Coast
An arabesque cut into underwater terrain.
Birds made of tree roots that birthed a leader. Islands
where a kayaker paddles. A pier dismantled
by the last storm, upper bodies of surfers
riding the waves. Violets of upturned gardens
swimming. The plee-ay when landscape is taken, then
taken again. Seaweed square-shouldered. Tectonic plates
sliding, a balcony gone. Earth forever crumbling.
Glissade of the dead.
Where calm waters appear, where a toppled gate
languishes, withhold the story, put it to rest.
I jump into the winter surge. The Pacific
howls to anyone on shore. Prance in and out
like a cormorant seeking fish. Before the tide changes,
before a prism shines, before a reporter would say,
Another storm. Shaking, I hold my head in a curved position,
water leaking out of each ear.
Laurel Benjamin’s new collection, Flowers on a Train, is available from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. She is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, active with the Women’s Poetry Salon. She curates Ekphrastic Writers and is a reader for Common Ground Review. Publications include: Pirene’s Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Mom Egg Review, Gone Lawn, Nixes Mate. She received an Honorable Mention for the Ruben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition. Laurel holds an MFA from Mills College. She invented a secret language with her brother. Find her at: laurelbenjamin.com.
Featured in:
Red Rock Review
Issue 55
