Back to Issue Fifty-Three

Alki Beach

BY LUE HUGHES

The bay of rocks before us, massaged by planks,
reaches for our hand in marriage. We lie on the ill-blue
blanket bought at the peak-end of the world
and the waves paparazzi. Families freckle, opening
umbrellas, ice chests, letting children loose
into the salt-flecked air. I know words aren’t enough
to breach, my love; the seagulls have begun to siren
their desires. Each will get theirs and Puget Sound
will hum until dusk dances across the boardwalk.
I once said I didn’t want to be married. I was young.
I wore the clothes I was given. The years have swallowed
me since, but, here, the estuary takes center stage,
and the sun, with swagger, straddles our backs with ease.
As I watch you sail into sleep, stomach oiled
with hard seltzers, cubed cheeses, crackers, music
glitters behind us. I have never been this warm.

Lue Hughes (she/her) is the author of A Shiver in the Leaves (Boa Editions, 2022), listed as best books of 2022 in The New Yorker, and the chapbook, Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), recommended by the American Library Association. She is the founder of Shade Literary Arts, an online platform for queer writers of color, cohosts The Poet Salon Podcast with Gabrielle Bates and Dujie Tahat, and serves as the Poetry Editor for CHUM News. Her honors include the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Rosenberg Fellowship, the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, Cascade PBS’s Black Arts Legacies honoree, and named Most Influential by Seattle Magazine. Her writing has been published in The Paris Review, Orion, American Poetry Review, Seattle Met, and others. She’s been featured in The Seattle Times, ForbesWomen, Essence, KUOW Public Radio, and more. Lue lives in Seattle, where she was born and raised. 

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