Vacation Memories

Tourists in their careful plush sweaters loom near
the edge, where they capture seafoam and ragged
rocks in cameras and telephoto lens. Vacation memories
or digital dead weights slung near dead white
seashell strings that decorate their skin. It’s up to you
how close to get, but I hold you back against images
of your head split on the rocks below. It can’t happen
like that. My fists would
break the sea
when I follow you down. And in. But we won’t think
about that now. Right now some tourists scramble
back to warm cars and plans for takeout. They say
it’s getting chilly and the fog is rolling in. It’s their
lives they fear for, tumbling over the edge, with victory
to the sharpness below, the salt sea starved and needy.
The waves break
and break again.




Kristen Michelle Håvet is an American-Canadian living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is editor in chief of Glossolalia. Her work has recently appeared in The Glass Coin and disenthralled. She has moved 27 times in her 30 years, and intends to continue the trend.