Alternative Sunday Service
BY MEGAN J. ARLETT
Five women wading nude
into the lagoon at Bethune Beach.
Mary’s hair
curled long enough
to cover her breasts and stomach,
and she swam to loan it,
to help each of us in turn
become a brief mermaid.
Not sand underfoot,
but broken oyster shells,
alternating coarseness and iridescence.
Insects in a cloud, kicked up by dusk.
Miracle needn’t mean divine
or even godlike.
I have been thinking of
this one small memory for a long time
because it wasn’t just a human wading.
The mangroves, too,
and the raccoons paddling between islands
like unromantic cherubs.
Five women wading. Our simple,
mirroring bodies the least surprising
things around. So much to see
we barely knew where to look.