Margo Montes de Oca
apple tree bay
we sleep with our heads on a ribbon of dune
between two pieces of sea
drifting into corridors of sound, sand
the wet blue grasses
of the unknown ocean
our bodies pumping blood
back and forth
like the tide
jellyfish filter through silica &
into our sleep-visions
pulsing red and nebular
filled with no thought but the water
hollow like boats
strung up above
the drift
elsewhere three kōkopu
— shapes of spirit — move
through portals between worlds
elsewhere a child
is born into the wetland
lines of silver run
down their mother’s legs
into the sea
your breath folds itself outwards
you reach toward me in the gathering light
the whole beach is in your fingernails
& in the morning
we wring out the towels
the tent still damp
from dreaming
sappho [21]
[
pity her
in trembling light
[
flesh by now old age gleaming new
she covers her eyes to the wind
flies in pursuit of
noble ruin
[
spills into the gold hollow places
taking up in armfuls the threadbare sun
let her sing to us still unknown is she reaching always for
the one with violets in her lap
who is mostly arrival
and then sweetly
goes astray
[
[
Margo Montes de Oca is a student and sometimes-writer from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She likes the sea, and ampersands, & sleeping in. Some of her poetry can be found in the fifteenth issue of Starling.