is a momentous affair. Veneration

drives steaming bodies into revelrous, 

unsurvivable throngs. Humidity compounds,

heat makes us suffer, and wind-whipped children

play house on the sand. I’ve walked

all the way here with a bag in my pocket

to collect washed up trash: bottle caps,

fishing line, wedding rings. A baby

cries and it sounds like a seagull calling

for french fries by the oil refinery chugging

behind the gathered masses. A teenager picks

at pimples and wipes the blood on a white

shirt bought just for this moment, to drown

sin and leave the smear in the water for dolphins

to drink. The fish of my childhood are gone. Nothing

is multiplying in the waves. How do I tell them—

laughing, bathing, soaked to the skin in salty droplets

—this water is poisoned?

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Rachel Blume is a mother and writer from the Texas Gulf Coast. She holds an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her work can be found in Skipjack Review, Cirque, Flora Fiction, Continue the Voice, and Glass Mountain.