OCEAN
By Corinne Robins

Before she was a person, there was her body,
small and perfect, when I, scared
and stumbling, made up the story
I called her life, not understanding
as a sometime director, I would stay mostly
in the audience, minutes like moving glances,
my hands reaching out with
promises of safety I knew I couldn't keep.

And stood by, unbelieving, when, at twenty,
a young graduate needing to be buoyed up,
she stepped onto the drug escalator,
stock marketing her hopes into roller
coaster crashes, finally to become someone
I wasn't sure I knew. And grown up, grown lost,
disappear from the stage.

Today at the ocean, I watch
long lines of waves spread on the sand;
blue, green and beautiful,
watch the ocean rock on the earth.
The breaking waves go forward, forward
finding a way to go.

© Copyright 1996 by Corinne Robins
originally appeared in Facing It, Pratt Press, 1996

Corinne Robins is a poet and art historian who lives in New York City. Other poetry books include Marble Goddesses with Technicolor Skins (Segue Foundation, 2000) and One Thousand Years: Poems (Marsh Hawk Press, 2004)