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.
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.