Today by Jen Gupta

my brain is a ball of ear wax. I don’t want to bother

brushing my teeth

or packing the beach bag

but you do it, so here we are. I sit on the blanket

stubbornly hot

while you wash my mood

off in the ocean

and return sparkling clean droplets

mustache full of salt. We sit staring at the stark line of blue against blue.

When you kiss me, I can taste the end of it and suddenly

the sand collecting in the crack of my book

becomes not something I will have to

vacuum up later

but a present left for a future second hand shopper who flips through the pages and craves water.

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Jen Gupta is a middle school English teacher, writer, avid hiker, and horse lover. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband and their houseplants.