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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Author: Mary Waterfield

Tybee Island

SAVANNA IDYL

Sometimes the sea comes in
from Tybee Island,
and smells of shrimp and salt.
It leaves you with a sense
of something close.
Like your ears picking up,
and you know you’ll never
forget the feeling.

See it a thousand times
and you have a thousand memories.
Doesn’t seem to be any limit.
Each time it stays,
and I swear,
it changes the way your face looks.
How your eyes pick up light.
What bends in a river and keeps bending,
until life piles up inside you.

And you realize you smell like the sea.
People walk around you like a shore,
come back
and introduce themselves.
They don’t know why,
just do.
You see it and accept it.
A charisma of sorts,
and you take them in with a smile
and come forth.

Like someone on the street
you never saw before,
or will again.
But an affair has happened,
stays with you,
a place you dream about
and never let go,
and never know why.