Lupita Eyde-Tucker

Beachcomber Nocturne

​Pink seafoam leaves odd gifts for me to find:
a puffed-up man-o-war, a mermaid’s purse,

empty lady slippers, Sargasso weed,
as if these things could fill my human needs.

I push my toes beneath the cold, damp sand,
observe the ocean’s purple evening.

A loggerhead rides up and heaves her bulk
to dig a hole, deposit future in the dark.

Until she’s done and slips back out to sea
I sit and match her labored breath to mine.

This sea: a Chevy engine revving high
reminding me how everything’s design.

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Lupita Eyde-Tucker writes and translates poetry in English and Spanish. She's the winner of the 2021 Unbound Emerging Poet Prize, and her poems have recently appeared in Columbia Journal, Raleigh Review, Women's Voices for Change, Rattle, [PANK], and Night Heron Barks. Lupita is pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Florida and will be a Staff Scholar at Bread Loaf Translator's Conference this summer. Read more of her poems here: www.NotEnoughPoetry.com