ISSUE 13

Rita Tiwari

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In the Cave at Lost Boy Beach

You stand at the center, looking up
as I cross the low lintel. Inside is cool,
the temperature of night. It’s small at first,
then cathedral-like, clogged with boulders
you say are the size of Volkswagens!
Purple and orange starfish stripe the walls;
anemones summon prey. The ceiling
striates, shadowy. Maybe the rocks
dropped, or were washed in by king tides.
Probably we could clamber over them
then exit, blinking, out the other side—
join the day-trippers on Short Beach
with their terriers and sandy-toed babies—
swab our wet hands on tee shirts,
shrug off a scraped knee. Instead, we turn
superstitious, let the primal frisson
of unease press us back into daylight,
where sun puddles our silhouettes
on damp shore, flares white on water.

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Sensation Novel

 

From the past
I forget everything

 

but laceration. The way
a hilt felt in my hand.

 

I’ve got a gothic house
for a body, haunted,

baked like brick,
walls of stacked stone;

 

desire is a villain,
rakish, crag-faced,

sullen. No blue-eyed boy
reading poetry

at a garden party.
Always darker,

tasting of mineral—
rough as a first draft,

brighter than champagne.

Dreamy as long skirts

 

floating in a lake.

 

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(Originally published in issue 46 of Permafrost Magazine, a print-only journal.)

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