Beach Day for the Writing Project, A Sestina

The girl asked her professor to explain in more detail
the class trip to the beach. “Our intention is to write,
meet for coffee and be home before dark.
Bring sunscreen, umbrellas; bring pens, paper and water.”
Face heatstroke, strangers, flabby tourists, death at sea?
For odes and prose? Seemed like quite a risk.

The girl went to the beach anyway, forgetting the risk
of poor grammar, of writer’s block, of conflicting character detail.
All the students headed to the shore, hoping to see
Venus shoved from foamy waves, on her right
Calliope, on her left, Eros, all thrashing in the water,
bringing the lifeguards, who’d drag the muses to the dark

shade of the first-aide tower. The gods, unused to the dark,
looked to each other, an inquiring glare, what kind of risk
had they taken, coming to these writers, afraid of the water.
The class pressed them, “Just give us more detail!
Please! You don’t know what it’s like to have to write!”
But the muses moved past them, head back to the sea.

Staring at the celestial backs, aghast by what they see,
“Now what?” the students thrash about like new mermaids, dark
waves drag their musings down, their ideas struggle to right
themselves on jumbled, green rocks. Untried words willing to risk
their prefixes, cutting themselves into roots, just a detail
gone ignored, a suffix dropped off, to avoid drowning in the water

of rough drafts. The girl trashes her first copy, drinks her water.
Is it already time for lunch? Most of the class, she can see,
is already heading for a café, one where each detail
of the menu is neatly written in neon chalk in a dark
corner, the blackboard hangs ominously above waitresses who risk
it all, balancing iced tea and salads to write
the menu items while standing on stools, not caring if the spelling is right
or worrying that a muse has slipped back into the water
or turning grey at the thought of the taking a plot risk.
Their sails have no holes; their boats not lost at sea.
They don't wonder if their peers pass judgment, critical and dark,
"She's no artist! Her abysmal word choice! The lack of detail!”

Finally, the girl steeled herself, took a risk that day to write
about every detail – the gods, the waitress, the water.
And though she can’t see the way, words float in from the dark.