Read Poem: Life on Mars by Lea Galanter

from Camille Patha, “Sunset (Beach Fever Series),” 1978

I remember
coming up from below
during the few times
we dared show
our faces, our bodies
the red sky matching
the garnet necklace
a gift from my grandmother
on my sixteenth birthday
me now a woman

I’d pick the few blades
of what had managed to survive
rub the green-brown between my fingers
feel its softness
my mother’s cheek
now lost in the blueness
she too wild to contain
had wanted to ride
with the waves

— Lea Galanter