The Reflection of Visible Wavelengths

Erica Goss

  

When I was seven
I asked my father

why the ocean
looked blue

instead of clear
like the seawater

I cupped in my hands.
Not given to quick

explanations, he gazed
at the line between

ocean and sky – for once,
it did not frighten him

and smiled a distant
secret smile, his face

relaxing as the Pacific
pulled at our feet,

then remembered me
standing in his shadow

salt water draining
from my hands.

It’s just a trick, he said
his face rearranging itself

a trick of the light.

  

  

  

  

Erica Goss edits Sticks & Stones, a free poetry newsletter, and runs a media arts program for teen girls. Recent work appears in Contrary, Tinderbox, The Tishman Review, Connotation Press, Hotel Amerika, Passager, Consequence, Spillway, Whale Road, Main Street Rag, Rattle, Eclectica, Blood Lotus, Café Review, Comstock Review, Lake Effect, and Perigee.

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: