Tidal by Emily Kedar

July 19, 2023
Poem title: Tidal Poet name: Emily Kedar Poem: No one else can see it, but in the cove when the tide’s out, tiny breathing barnacles open and close, open and reach out. My stepdaughter calls me me in the night from the other side of the country, asks me without asking me to keep protecting her. And though I orbit the shores of her life, no one, not even I can tell how close we really are. Pebbles touch the skin of smaller pebbles, rubbed soft by years of steady tumbling. Everything in suspension: the stones sound like rain as the tide recedes, rakes over their flat faces, turning them this way and that. Sometimes, I don’t know if I should hug her before bed. Sometimes, I grab her hand and can’t let go. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Emily Kedar Emily Kedar is a writer, poet and therapist living Ontario, Canada. Her work has most recently been featured in The Maynard, Living Hyphen and The Loch Raven Review and is forthcoming in The Avalon Review. She is a merit scholar and MFA canditate at Pacific University.