The Rookery, by Mary Torregrossa

Draped Reclining Mother and Baby, by Henry Moore (UK). 1983

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The Rookery

Like a seaweed pod
bulbous, swollen, glistening –
the mother’s burnished head tenses
looking out to sea. She is heavy,
hard, at a glance, supple as a sea lion
flopping across the sand
like one big muscle, to bask
in the sun; her pup is close by.
 
The reclining woman is unafraid,
unpretentious, big, impossible
to move in the gravity of land,
solid but sleek in the briny
deep. The baby is inert
 
with intertidal weight. She
trusts the mother’s unconstructed
bulk, resting in the embryonic
hollow of her arm –
at high tide they will rise
and lumber over rocks
to heft and slide
polished bodies back again
into their aquatic origins.

Mary Torregrossa

Mary Torregrossa, originally from Rhode Island, lives in Southern California where she teaches ESL to adults from around the world. Her poems appear in the Los Angeles anthologies, Voices From Leimert Park Redux and Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, Dime Show Review, Poets Responding to the News and Remembered Arts Journal. A chapbook, My Zocalo Heart is published by FinishingLine Press, 2018.