flare
-April 19th, 2010
an old man walked
from the barbecue area
of the Beachview Resort Hotel
to the water
he concentrated
past the obstacle of children
who stole shells from under his foot
or traced borderlines
in the sand with gull feathers
plump lovers bounded ahead
with some float device
at last he
reached the Gulf of Mexico
stopped waist deep
wet his arms from the shoulder
dipped down to his ears
when his behind reached
the water floor
he took a sitting position
this way the current
eventually drifted him
legs ahead
back to shore
I still have not told you
about the old man’s hair
full crop
no sign of recession
and in the beach’s reflective sun
it was blinding white
like a flare
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chelsea Lemon Fetzer received her BA at Sarah Lawrence College, and her MFA in fiction at Syracuse University in 2008. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Stone Canoe, Callaloo, Tin House, and The Mississippi Review.
She lives in Brooklyn and works as an instructor for PEN American Center’s Readers and Writers Program and leads weekly writing workshops for LGBTQ homeless youth through the New York Writers Coalition. In 2009 She founded The Create Collective, a non-profit orgaization working to bridge the gaps between artists and community based organizations by creating opportunities for dialogue, developing and coordinating arts workshops, and managing collaborative creative projects.
Poets for Living Waters 