Atlantic Ocean

            (Why do we come to the water?)

To move a handful of sand from one hand
to another        to repeat        the water is the same
water and it’s not        it is not the same water
and saying this is nothing new like the water
a reminder        that I am here because the ocean
is there        is that music or muzac? an old man speaking Russian
hands a strawberry to another man in the pavilion
that smells like salt and sunscreen and piss
a pavilion        of strangers staring into space like a Rothko
interrupted by dragonflies and cormorants
the open space the horizon        to actually see
the far off edge of it        is right here
here by the water where we make
the quiet choices of living

Susan (Sue) Landers (she/her) is the author of Franklinstein (Roof Books, 2016), a multi-genre collection about a Philadelphia neighborhood wrestling with the legacies of colonialism, racism, and capitalism. She is also the author of two full-length books of poetry—248 mgs., a panic picnic (O Books, 2003) and Covers (O Books, 2007). Her chapbooks include 15: A Poetic Engagement with the Chicago Manual of Style (Least Weasel, 2011) and What I Was Tweeting While You Were On Facebook (Perfect Lovers Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Poem-A-Day, The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, and elsewhere. She was the founding editor of the experimental poetry journal POM2. She was a 2018 artist in residence at PLAYA Summer Lake and a 2015 resident fellow at Saltonstall Colony for the Arts. She has an MFA from George Mason University and lives in Brooklyn.