The sea makes a lot of noise, but not
"he said, she said," nothing like that.
I could write, "we’re all secrets," but the sea is white
and when it’s not it’s clear and here’s something else I notice:
Sometimes the sea breaks into round pieces.
Sometimes the sea is plaid.
Sometimes the sea turns, goes the other way.

Look at those boys! They dress like
seals, die into waves, knowing they were
born of water, and
nothing of telephones.

My students sit in a room
with no windows. I ask them, please,
describe something. A painting. A leaf.
They look down. They can’t think of anything to say.

After the Flood, the Laundromat

The warmth is damp and familiar.
                             days slit by rain
We pass through glass doors painted with sun.
                              the river, soiled,
Inside everything is white and timed.
                              thick with silt, and fast,
Charmed by such regularity we unload
the fabric of our private lives.
                              took with it trees, porches...
Plunged, humiliated, blemishes pale. What clothes us is
pulled from wave and heat, stretched wide in open air.
                              drawbridges, helpless, pointed skyward
Dryers shudder, click on and off,
                              under a red mailbox the earth sank
we move like clockwork.
                              a girl drowned
A boy with a face too young for his mustache
studies the whiteness of his undershorts; his fingers make careful folds–
neat crease and neat crease.

Genevieve Leone received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Irvine in 1999. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.