Maiden Voyage//Isabel Nameth Beck

because I forgot what it feels like to have an always beach
and mostly-always sun and nights fuzzy like a peach rind. I
was eighteen the last time I carried my heels by the strap,
one finger curled and pink in the reflection of the tide pools.
the hem of my prom dress had to be dry-cleaned because I
like to walk on the packed sand, wet and sifting between my
blistered toes. it makes me feel big like marble, like my veins
shoot out from my soles and through the earth to anchor me.
before I go home - north, north again, freshwater ocean-lake
floating slabs of ice out and back into each other, the surface
of an alien planet rupturing and freezing and restarting its
infinite life - I watch the world turn over in the shadow of the
North Atlantic. when the sun rises, the water is still bathwarm
and my sheets press seashells into my chest.

Isabel Nameth Beck is an MFA student at Northern Michigan University by way of Dallas, Texas. She is a Norton Writers Prize recipient and her other work can be found in the Long River Review and Discretionary Love. She is currently crocheting a sweater for her cat and dreaming of the beach.