Every evening before I go to bed,

I look at the ocean:

vast, eternal, every

cliche from Matthew Arnold.

If I'd grown up here,

I might be thinking

over that horizon

is Gibraltar, fetched up

at the end of this string

around the globe.

But I think of what's behind me.

What I like is not only

the sea at my doorstep,

but the continent at my back.

Not the world before me

like a land of dreams,

but Topeka far behind,

parched Kansas slumbering,

court squares and teachers’ colleges

baking at the hot center of America –

all that pushed me here,

an animal running from a brush fire,

this beach my last escape.

If one day flames pursue me

to this tidemark, I will walk

past the breakers, out into the deep

and swim toward Africa,

an easy stroke, a dolphin kick.

I am slow but steady, and

I can swim forever,

out to that horizon

and so far beyond.

Sharon Hoffmann | Publications: NYQ, Beloit Poetry Journal (Pushcart nom), & Alice Walker (Harvard University) .