Two Poems by Chloe Martinez (Poetry ’09)

Spine

In Maine, at the edge

of an island, the huge

rocks went out, out

into the icy water

then suddenly down,

like whales sounding,

and I never saw a whale there,

but I was twelve, thigh-deep,

feeling that good cold

that gets in your bones,

makes you feel mortal, and up

came a dolphin, just beyond

my arm’s reach, its curved back

a smaller island, shining

wet, cloud-colored,

and I was afraid of it,

I wanted

to touch it, I stood

still, and then it

moved on.