Heather Christle

SHE STAYS UP IN OGUNQUIT

Also she is underemployed
Also she makes blood
as do we all
as do we all Oh this
is not news she thinks
and spreads out both her hands
using gesture to reach you
on the beach
in the middling afternoon
If she were she says
a mermaid
she’d slap one starfish
on each breast
There is so much real time
she says she thinks
just outside the castle walls
meaning her skin
meaning to amble
to the mini golf
where one station
yes a windmill
stands enormous
and in flames

HEATHER CHRISTLE is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Heliopause. New poems appear in Boston Review, London Review of Books, and The New Yorker. Born and raised in New Hampshire, she now lives in a small village in Ohio.