‘Slipper’
— Joyce Chong
What I love
about the sea is its relentless
newness, the constant turning over—
This week I have a poem by Maggie Smith for you all. ‘Slipper’ reads like a photograph, illustrating perceptibly a particular moment in time, and while the imagery and sense of the ocean is quite vivid, it’s the place of mind that remained with me most from this poem. Not only does Smith draw out a sunny beachside day at the ocean, but there is something more behind all this description. Something more understated. The sense of repeating cycles:
I am becoming my mother here
in a skirted one-piece swimsuit,
my thighs glistening scallop-white
and tender, spreading in the beach chair,
the contrast between the sea’s “relentless newness” with the intentional, steady-paced, passing of time. The mind jogging to catch up with the body’s accumulated distances, the recognition of the transformations time makes of us. “I am becoming my mother here”, not simply a mother, “my mother”. All the ways we shift, we often forget to keep track of ourselves and who we’ve become.
I loved the final line the most. Something so unexpectedly apt can come from such ordinary moments, but what I really admired was Smith’s ability to craft a reading experience so similar to the act of discovering, of planning the impromptu, and creating something uncontrived. A momentary burr that catches, and refuses to let go.
Imagine if I could
wear my home and call it my body,
wear my body and call it home.