Anita Bermann

He at the Edge


Seascape with Lovers and Cat

The cat was soft and sat by the edge
of the sea. The day was soft and dripped
onto the cliffs like wax. The cliffs were waxy,
the sea was blue-green, the clouds tore
through the sky like fat fur tails.

He opened and the sea
opened with him, white plumes, wet stacks
and the white walls. Into the sea
and his heart pounding, a dizzy hissing.
A feline wail. Wanting he wandered, he and he hand 
in hand, damp lips and the moorings
all adrift, thick limbs sinking
in. The washed out light, the deep dark
of the cat's eyes.

The cat's fur blew around it like a cape.
Down by the water some warped boards, a narrow 
man slip-bumping across the beach, fisted metal 
dowsing for spare change.

They sat at the shore swelling 
to fill the whole place like the water 
in the rock. They touched their faces
and thought of sea lions, their sharp wet whiskers.
They swelled and talked of simple things: knees 
hinged backwards, seagulls rising, asexual 
reproduction. Submarines, those small round windows.

The pebbled shale stretched for miles. A bubbling 
of anemone, intestinal pink. A flash of sulfur 
and the cat shrinking seaward, sharp little cat teeth 
grinding salt all the way down. He and he 
were not for swimming or climbing, never
to skip stones across the jagged surf, never to penetrate
the caves. He clawed his hand across his face
to clean the salt from his skin, 
the salt came off in thin 
white sheets.

They balanced starfish on the tips 
of their fingers, trying to hold back 
from squeezing, tongues thick 
in their mouths.

He stepped out of the sea with his heart pounding,
a hissing making him dizzy, a feline wail. 
He closed and the cliffs melted 
like wax. No, never to the edge of the sea, never 
to walk into the waves; never to feel
the sun hot blue-green and fluid, cords 
of light between rock.

The day fell on the beach like grey leaves.
It could have been November.



The Boy

He sits in a whitewalled room, blue-green
light waving across the plaster. Outside 
a flat stillness, polished city. Like a pile of leaves
the grey buildings press together into one mass.

Pale flat light. He presses his feet together
in black shoes, a void
between where the shoes narrow.
He stretches his legs, it is fall but
if he leans back to the narrow slit 
of window he can feel the sun on his cheek,
tiny flame. He runs his tongue across the edge
of his mouth and thinks of the muscles 
in a man's back, those thick cords.

The room swells with the sound of pants,
parallel tongues aching to touch. A low echo
rising. He throbs 
like invisible signals through wire, 
a loose handful of wire
spilling like caterpillars to the floor.
Sweat clings to the inside of his legs 
like seaspray.

Papers waltz from his desk
to the floor in the last light but he does not bend;
stares at a blue screen throbbing. How warm
it would be to be inside himself, he thinks,
and swells. He closes his eyes just in time
to watch the sun set, sinking like a huge round tongue
into the belly of the ocean. 

He strokes a piece of paper
like a feather 
against his skin.

From somewhere far off, a white 
surging, the waves of sound 
arching together 
into one mass, like a swell building 
higher and higher-- that low echo rising
from the sea-- Here 
kitty kitty. Here kitty. 
Here kitty kitty--


Seascape without Lovers or Cat

Clouds at the edge of the sea, white plumes.
A continental shelf narrowing, salt leaking
from the surf. Some warped boards, washed-out 
light. Shale stretching for miles, light 
cords between rock.

The tide, some change, 
a handful of birds.



A Final Fragment About the Cat

A quick blur
past the window, 
a whiskery face 
falling, eyes
wide, questioning,
fur expanding 
into a cape.


Anita Bermann is a proud 2008 B.A. graduate of the Oberlin College Creative Writing program, after which she frittered away twelve years in an inexplicable combination of love, marriage, farming, and becoming a registered dietitian nutritionist. She is excited to be starting her no-income career (writing) now that the appropriate attention has been given to the other kind.