Future Brooches

There is a dangerous beach outside of Big Lagoon
with a steep shelf where the waves come up like walls
and crash like walls. And one evening,
approaching nautical twilight, I saw some people
hunched over in the sand. Their body language told me
they were studying something, but what it was was unclear.
I figured this was one of those moments I would never know the answer
unless I were to ask. The waves crashed and crashed.
So I approached some of these crouching people, of which
there were several, and asked what it was they were looking for
and could I help? If they needed any help?
It felt like showing up to dress rehearse a pivotal scene
in a play whose script I had practiced in the car
and poorly. I wasn’t sure what it was I was prepared to offer,
given my limited skill set of, I don’t know, making bouche de noel,
whatever else it is I do. The sand people said, Looking for agate,
and I said, What? Agate! They said, their fingers like spiders.
Oh, I said, like I understood. And then one day I did.

ξ

Chelsea Harlan holds a BA from Bennington College and an MFA in Poetry from Brooklyn College, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. Her poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Sixth Finch, DIAGRAM, Southwest Review, The Greensboro Review, American Poetry Review, and The Southern Poetry Anthology. She is the co-author of the chapbook Mummy (Montez Press, 2019), and the recipient of the Mikrokosmos Poetry Prize. She lives in Appalachian Virginia.