Somewhere beyond this January fog
that’s walled me in against the dunes
are murky, Atlantic waves sneaking
ashore. From where I sit,
toes clenching the cool, white sand,
I can hear the squeaky, kip-kip call
of a stormy petrel surfing the crests.
If I was fifteen, instead of fifty-five,
I would concoct some epiphany
from this solitude, imagine myself
a lighthouse or a mermaid,
but long ago I stopped needing
such clarification, wanting now
only to stretch my legs toward
the inevitable, ebbing tide.
Littoral
Karen Head is the author of five books of poetry, including Lost on Purpose, My Paris Year, and Sassing. She is the Poet Laureate of Fulton County (GA), the Poet Laureate of Waffle House, the editor of Atlanta Review, and a professor at Missouri S&T.