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.
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