Beach, Lake Michigan
ANNAKA SAARI
Sitting in the sand I remember the blue-
gray strokes of a painting my grandmother
created years ago. The story: a day spent
on Lake Michigan, a one-legged seagull
my grandfather named Maynard, cousins
visiting from Gwynne. Her drafting table
grew dusty, brushes dried. Back in my
seat on the beach, feeling grains attach
themselves to my thighs, I am aware
of the eternal in the temporary. The gray-
blue pelicans dive into the gray-blue waves
and I feel a pang of jealousy. There are
so many fish shimmering below the surface.
They don’t even know what’s coming.
Annaka Saari earned her BA from The University of Michigan and her MFA from Boston University, where she now works as the administrator for the Creative Writing Program. She also serves as managing editor for Solstice Literary Magazine and a poetry reader for The Los Angeles Review. The recipient of a Florence Engel Randall Graduate Fiction Prize and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, her work has been named a finalist for the Prufer Poetry Prize, longlisted for the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and appeared in or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Pleiades, Poetry Wales’ “How to Write a Poem” series, 68to05, and other publications.
Hometown: Jackson, MI
Twitter: @AnnakaSaari
Instagram: @annaka_saari
Website: https://annakasaari.com/