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      December 28, 2017Surf DaysElizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

      Image: “Wind-Blown Meadow” by Phyllis Meredith. “Surf Days” was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2017, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      Surf days
      when you said
      nobody goes
      on new adventures
      anymore and
      so we drove
      out to the coast
      and watched the tiny
      waves do
      nothing
      to the shoreline, sat
      on rocks
      and drank the beer
      that I had stolen
      from my roommate, left
      green bottles
      blinking sun back
      from the sand.
       
      In the photo
      that I pinned up to old walls for years
      and then stuck
      in the center of a book, I see
       
      your hair a question mark, your
      eyes
       
      the darkness curled up inside of a shell
      the world around you
      lit
       
      with lines and gray, but most of all just
      you
       
      so very young—my best
      best friend
       
      the smartest
      kid I ever knew, some
      kind of god
       
      who lifted sand
      and sent stars flying
      everywhere.
       
      How did we love and hurt and care
      and turn to nothing
       
      after that?

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor on this selection

      “Quite simply, this poem felt the most emotionally honest of all those we received this month. I can see the scene at the beach and this photograph tucked into the speaker’s notebook, even though I know it really isn’t there. An entire world is constructed from the image, and because it feels so real, the longing feels real, too.”