Disappeared

Unkept lighthouses blink electric

at lobster boats, boards on beach house

windows, the stiff crash of wave on cliff

 

The girls under the dunes

beat their palms against the sand

 

The beach pulses with them

if you’ve got the right eyes

 

January is the best time to look:

the restless cold

the pound of the ocean

 

like a pretty mouth

chewing on police reports

like a mother’s heartbeat

pulling them home

 

 


Cassandra de Alba’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Red Lightbulbs, Illuminati Girl Gang, Strange Horizons, and Drunken Boat, among other publications. Her most recent chapbooks are called Bloodlust (No Spaceships Allowed) and Special Bitch Academy. She lives in Massachusetts and blogs at outsidewarmafghans.tumblr.com.