SARA’S PLAY by Russ Woods

Sara wrote a play. In it, two people are standing in a room and each of them is a beautiful beach. The sun is setting over one of the beaches. The two people look at each other and speak to each other in wave crashes and seagull caws. Their tides move in sympathy with one another.

       the first one pulls                                   the second pushes

                                         the second pushes                  the first pulls

       they give                                                    each other

                                         salt-wind                                   as gifts.

       beach glass                                                     beach glass

                                         the room fades away.             they actually

       are                                                                    beaches.

                                         beach glass
beach glass

       beach glass                      beach glass

The one with the setting sun whispers something to the one with the sun overhead. It says sometimes we have to let go.

Russ Woods is a divorced poet living in Chicago. He is the author of Wolf Doctors (Artifice, 2013) and his work is published or forthcoming in Diagram, Mudluscious, Barrelhouse, iO, [PANK], and NAP.