Swimming in Akumal by Jo Kennedy

Swimming in Akumal

 

You could learn to live here
without ever measuring time
in linear seconds or distance
in the miles we journey.
Everything here is cyclical
and circular like the half moon
bay we swim in. Sun
and wind are nature’s runes,
marking summer solstice, or storms
churning in from sea.

You could learn to forget here,
drifting in emerald water
among sea turtles and fish
the color of fruit–kiwi, mango, papaya–
and all around you, coral reefs rising
like sacred temples from the ocean’s floor,
their exotic bloom luring
you beyond the cove,
tugging you to unfamiliar channels
of amnesia, uncharted dreams.

You could learn what it means
to love here, the red hibiscus
unfolding its petals to morning,
a beauty and clarity
as resonant as the tide.
At night you could taste the salt
on your lover’s lips, knowing
you are tasting the earth,
knowing what it means
to love the world
we are adrift in.


Jo Kennedy
Jo Kennedy is a poet and painter living in Richmond, VA. She has an MFA in Poetry from VCU and a Masters of Humanities from the University of Richmond. Jo has published in a number of journals including Florida Review, California Quarterly, New Virginia Review, Oregon East, Hawaii Pacific Review, George State University Review, and Kansas quarterly, among others. Her chapbook Wind River Song was selected as the winner of the 1997 Anabiosis Press chapbook competition and published in that year.


Featured image: Sunrise Over Half-Moon Bay, Akumal, Mexico by Greg Younger. CC license.

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