by R. A. Allen
Today is much hotter than yesterday.
And when I slosh in on the sandbank
the sea foam swirling around my ankles
reminds me of cappuccino froth.
The bay's water molecules are in a riot
of thermal expansion, they jostle away
from each other like irritable speed freaks,
causing a lift in the sea level,
causing me to ride microns higher
with each breaststroke's insweep.
All of this for a clearer view of the shore ahead,
a poetic beach—a Chesil or a Harlech—
vastly more poetic than the one I just left,
and on it sits a bethonged beachgirl. I plow
through the waves like a travel-poster steamship,
and the girl, now standing, shades her eyes
against the glare (the better to see me,
I am hoping). But most likely she is staring
past me at my trailing cohort—one acre
of drift ice topped by a colony of polar bears.
They're crowded together like angels on the head
of a pin. But these bears are in no mood for dancing.
R. A. Allen's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Quarterly, Poetry Online, B O D Y, The Penn Review, RHINO, The Los Angeles Review, Pennine Platform, Lotus Eater, etc. He has been nominated for a BotN and two Pushcarts. Find his fiction in The Literary Review, The Barcelona Review, PANK, The Los Angeles Review, and Best American Mystery Stories 2010. He lives with his wife in Memphis, a city of light and sound. https://bodyliterature.com/2020/02/17/r-a-allen/
January House Literary Journal 
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