© Jennifer Davidson Marshall
Stone Soup Servings is a regular series for Oddball Magazine that features upcoming features at Stone Soup Poetry, the long-running spoken word venue in the Boston area that has recently partnered with Oddball Magazine. Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m.
This coming Monday’s feature is Carolyn Gregory, author of Open Letters and Facing The Music, which will be out in January of next year.
Watercolor
My father’s soul was born in water.
He learned to navigate the waves,
his lungs strong as he stroked
through the cold Atlantic,
fearless of sharks and barnacles.
Neptune gave him a third eye
to see through salt,
scooting through moonsnails,
quickly among rocks.
My father’s daughter,
I am made of water, too.
Born near a lake,
at five I followed my father
to the shore.
I got used to the cold
as he showed me how to curve
backward for support,
leaning into dark water and his arms.
When I was seven,
my hair tangled in lake weeds
and the undertow pulled me out,
little girl who thought she could
swim to infinity,
my shoulders smashed into sand,
tumbling through the green vortex.
Daddy pulled me out.
I did not speak that day.
Many years later,
ocean cups my breasts,
races along the inner knees
when I enter the water at Wingaersheek
where children scream with joy.
Near dusk, I crawl through waves,
and I am weightless as flotsam.
Gulls sail through clouds,
their bellies golden with evening light.
Water dissolves the shore and distance.
I enter the green swoosh, forgetting my crazy
fear of sharks,
remembering the water was my mirror of God
while the lighthouse turns pink in sunset.
I am swimming toward my father’s endless love,
his tall, strong daughter,
stroking toward the gray horizon.
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