Kat Lehmann

A Postcard from Ocean City

I slosh through the rolls of salt water at my childhood beach. Turn to ride a breaker. Lift the front edge of my boogie board to get a longer ride to shore.

slippery fish

Air pockets pop in the sand as the water recedes. As a child, I imagined an animal, perhaps a miniscule sand crab, lived inside these tiny holes that reappear after each wave clears. I wondered what it is like to live like that, with home repeatedly overtaken and cleared until the cycle of upheaval itself becomes the norm.

another memory

When Mother packed our home into boxes, she probably thought a momentary wave had overtaken her world. She packed everything as if she were moving across town. She never saw most of her belongings again. Neither of us did.

pulled to the surface 

As I visit the beach today with my family, everything is changed except for the feeling of the surf and the angle of the late afternoon sun as it sparkles a path to shore. I know those summers happened. I can wade in the salt of them.

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About the Author

Kat Lehmann is a founding co-editor of Whiptail: Journal of the Single-Line Poem, an associate editor at Sonic Boom, and the author of three books of poetry. She serves on the panel for The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards. Kat lives on the edge of a Connecticut forest, where she is captivated by the grandiose within the minute. katlehmann.weebly.com.