Jaws

I don’t realize I’m starved

for the color until the blood

washes up on the beach.

I’m craving red but still

haven’t seen the creature,

just the quick whip and slither

of its tail in the wake

—and then there I am,

facing the skin side

of the animatronic shark.

The slick apertures of its eyes.

The mythic teeth.

The anvil nose beating

the deck, cracking windows.

The shark, like the moon, is

pockmarked, unstoppable,

never showing its hidden side.

Surely space is just another underwater,

the messages we send from satellites

a bleeding haze of infrared:

This is my blood type,

this is where I keep my body at night,

and I tell no one about the times

my body, taking over,

stands waist-deep in the surf,

some wild need inside me

ticking into place.

Emma Hine, "Jaws" from Stay Safe. Copyright © 2021 by Emma Hine. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books, Inc.