Written during our Poetry workshop. I don’t normally write poetry, but I like puzzles, and sestinas are like a puzzle. Generation F is about the power of femininity and its untapped potential that has yet to be expressed in its full range of possibility. With that in mind, I aimed to capture a few feelings: the tune of the ocean, the malleability of time, and the pleasure of female friendship.
Traveling a winding road in the company of women
Will always lead to a wistful surf
We disrobe in the middle of the night
Together, unself-conscious in the tradition of girls.
Even in winter we will find a way to swim,
Warmed by spirits and the spontaneous drive
That spurred us on in the first place to get in the car and drive,
Our bags packed with comforts because we are women
It is always necessary to bring a suit for swim
As necessary as the lapping surf
That awaits us friends, us girls
Who have uttered secrets in every season at night
It is easier to speak straight, forward into the night
Whether looking out upon waves or still on the drive
Illuminated by traffic lights in the backseat as if girls,
Speaking officiously to their families, practicing to become women.
We screech and shout, our voices dissipating into the frothing surf—
It receives us as we dunk our heads and decide to swim.
Every time I’ve felt God has been during a swim
Or after, at dusk, as golden hour seeps into night
The black-haired girls drag silently from the sea toward the surf
And try not to think of when we’ll need to drive
Home, soon, away from this respite of women
A steady moving stream of sex and death and birth. Girls,
All the concerns of girls
Contemplating them with closed eyes as we swim
And float, we contemplate if we are yet women
Or if when we are them we’ll still tell the truth at night
Will we be resculpted by a different route or drive
Will we still dare in the cold to run directly to the surf
Or will we no longer hear the surf’s metronome
Will we have no time to remind ourselves that we are girls
Untouched by the idea of hustle, obligation, or drive
Dedicating our bodies to the virtue of swim
And the places we go together at night
And the divinity of women buoyed by women
Girls become women like the slap of a dive
Blue swims remind us of what we are at night