Eager for conversation,
standing near a tarp-covered shopping cart,
she asks a gentleman traveler:
Do you have an ocean?
Is she wondering
whether he lives
near an ocean, as they are now?
Is she hearing all the ideas in his head
and wondering whether he
is oceanic of thought?
Do you have an ocean?
Is he capacious
and fluid enough to accommodate
this person unknown to him?
Would he answer
that no, he does not,
that no one has?
Do you have an ocean?
Or would he say, Yes, of course,
just to placate her, or just to amuse her,
or because actually, he does have one,
an ocean even he
can’t see the bottom of,
green as glass,
maybe like hers,
translucent, rhythmic,
shifting the sand.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 1.
Cammy Thomas’s most recent book is Odysseus’ Daughter (Parkman Press, 2023), poems in response to the Odyssey. She has three full-length poetry collections published by Four Way Books. Cathedral of Wish received the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Tremors received 2022 Poetry Honors from the Mass Book Awards. A fellowship from the Ragdale Foundation helped her complete Inscriptions. Her poem, “Far Past War,” was set to music by her sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas, and premiered with the Cathedral Choral Society in Washington DC in 2022. She teaches literature to adults and lives near Boston.
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