I was kelp:
wet velvet
in warm water.
You were one wave
and another.

My Hungarian Mother

She didn’t let the ocean
touch her toes. Too foreign,
she said. I lie back,
I hear the soldiers’ boot steps
beat the sand. I look out,
I see grief in the changing shapes
of the waves.

Luminous

I greeted the waves
knocked down in the collapse,
my legs apart, water swallowed.
Salted, I had an endless
number of lovers.

My Mother Lived Through the Shoah

My mother slept
on the beach
and I listened
for the trains.

Margit Rutherford first began writing by creating and performing narrative monologues inspired by snapshots from childhood. She studied poetry at Sarah Lawrence’s MFA program. Two of her poems will be published in the next issue of Confrontation Magazine. She was raised in Greenwich Village and now lives in New Mexico.