Animals: “Coming Out/Low Tide” by Mischa Kuczynski

Coming Out/Low Tide


Walking across the barnacles
taking off my shoes
so I would also suffer
finding the small green pools
in which it was possible—
by looking into them—
to really be alone.

Anemones either disguised
or decorated in small stones 
wait to eat—
my fingers too
feel the hungry sucking.

But which feels more like breathing—
the daily rush of light and air
or the weight of the ocean
on their faces?

About Mischa Kuczynski

Mischa Kuczynski is a lesbian Jewish poet and artist living and working in Northern California. She holds an MA in Creative Writing in Poetry from UC Davis and a BFA in Photography from the University of Utah. A finalist for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Pleiades, Fence, Sinister Wisdom, and elsewhere.