Not a Walk On The Beach

Jennifer Metsker The air before me
is the flavor of
an oat cake popsicle.
Or a shoe box.
Or the water sports
I’m not doing.
So I sign for
a prescription
while all the world
is water sporting
in brightly-colored
board shorts. It’s
a matter of geometry—
every body on the beach
is a perfect angle. They
lean toward life. They
lean toward classified
water sports while
I decide to buy
a frozen thing and
enter ghost
In this place, ghosts
are not much
to talk about.
now there’s a good
topic for conversation.
On a motor boat, on
a reservoir as dull
as the beer cans
that bob in it,
mouths opens
but only motor
sounds come out.
Longing for death
is like stumbling
through the freezer aisle
in a wet bathing suit
clutching chicken
cutlets shaped like
guns. But the
crushed head of an
accidental fall never
manifests. The floor
is too aloof today.
Still my need to
climb into the freezer.
It’s a matter of not
fitting in. Or a
problem. Or perhaps
it’s the prescription.
Boats pull away
from a dock
somewhere and press
their faces into
the water. It’s
the water that makes
them sicker.
Or the chicken.
There’s a room
beneath the water
where all the guns
are hidden in
the game system.
All the grunts and
all the guns. And
no one water-skis in
No one is having any fun.

Jennifer Metsker lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she is the Writing Coordinator at the Stamps School of Art and Design. Most recently her poetry has been published in Beloit, Birdfeast, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, and wildness. Her audio poetry is regularly featured on the BBC Radio program Short Cuts. She also writes essays on art and design, and her most recent piece can be found in the anthology The Shell Game: Writers Play with Borrowed Forms.
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