On the pier above the Menai Strait,
she laughs like she could never not be loved,
her body pushed against the railings
leaning out over the currents
like the anglers hoping to hook crabs
from the silt.
Wind throws hair across her features,
cleaving as it does the reeds
that edge the beaches on Anglesey.
This is the only way I want to think of her,
so joyous that even the air tries
to take her for itself.
***
M.J. Arlett is an MFA candidate at Florida International University where she is the nonfiction editor for Gulf Stream Magazine. She was born in the UK, spent several years in Spain and now lives in Miami. Her work can be found in Lunch Ticket, The Boiler Journal, Gravel, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and elsewhere.
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