Europa Lll Poem by Morgan Michaels

It got hot, and her girlfriends began to shed clothing, draping the shed clothes over their shoulders and necks., so she did, too, and her pricey stole of lavender toile, made in far-off Persia, slipped unnoticed from her shoulders and fell flat- spread-out on the ground behind, where it lay prone like a sleeping, blue puddle. Soon, their divestiture was complete, only their buskins remaining to keep their feet from stones and other sharps.

From the bluff top you could see the sea far below. At once, it seemed to breath and hold its breath, both moving and still. Little waves hurled themselves imploringly onto a strip of sand that the sun made golden-brilliant, as if they wanted to be picked up, but the sand let them down and never picked them up at all, so they slid back to their berths. The waves were a sort of electric green, the color of anti-freeze, she thought, which was odd because neither had either of these been yet invented, there being no present need, as it was quite warm. The sight of them rhythmically rising and falling composed an unsung berceuse in the mind of at least one viewer, who shielding her half-shut eyes from the sun, slipped headlong down the bluff via the footpath with her girlfriends, laughing in file.