that I want
the Sea Witch
in ways
I will never
want him.
She screams in his face, and I’m afraid my mother and I won’t reach them before he draws a hand back to strike her.
But then he laughs.
he laughs as loud
as the roar of his car engine.
he says the Sea Witch doesn’t love,
that there’s a handful of broken shells
where her heart should be.
then he reaches
for my wrists.
The moment before his hands land on her, I remember the jagged pieces I fastened around her neck and forearms. I remember her carefully pulling her sleeves down.
the full force of his grabbing hands
strikes all those edges he can’t see.
Through her sleeves, the sharp pieces slice his palms and fingers.
he yelps at the pain,
at the blood on his hands.
then comes all the sound
la Bruja del Mar wove
into shells and twine.
First, there’s the roar of waves. It’s as loud as if the house itself was a shell, spinning the noise through the weathered staircases and old rooms and throwing it out through the door.
mist rises from the ocean
and spills through the streets
like a tide rushing in.
Waves crash against the seawall and the rocks so hard that the sky throws the sound over the whole cove.
he takes a step toward me,
and the crashing of waves
