Musings from a seaside window
​Clara Meyers

I open the door to a pond in the living room.
Brown like the feet of the stained antique chair 
Whose legs it gathers around.

The washing machine had disconnected from the wall.
Water spilled from pipes onto the floor boards
And sunk through the gaps to the ceiling below
Where it dripped methodically to the floor,
Saturated with the dust of the house’s interior.

The cats witnessed the affair,
Being the only creatures home at the time,
One, perched on the table
Among petals dried and fallen from the dying bouquet above,
The other on the back of the sofa, 
Nestled sleepily in a knitted blanket.

My parents, 
Laying bleach stained towels on the ground,
Scold the cats for not shutting off the water,
As any person would know to do in such a situation. 
The cats, in response, sulk away.
They are not humans,
And besides, they do not know where the valve is.

I retreat upstairs to escape my father’s concerns about
The state of the new house and it’s
Now soggy floorboards,
And lean against a window sill to watch the herons,
Just left of the jetty, 
Standing in low tide’s pooling.
It seems they know how to exist in gathering water
Faithful that a switch will flip,
Halting the rising waves
When the ocean has had enough.

Two couples take their place
Evenly spaced along the sea wall below me.
All of us are stationed in voyeuristic worship
Of the screaming birds, who, I fear, are in agony,
As evidenced by their ceaseless cawing.
The couples stand in momentary, near feline stillness,
In unconcerned reverence of 
The vast, blurry landscape.

I hear my father shuffling in the laundry room 
The dull sliding of the machine along the floor,
The thunk of the valve to off,
And
The light tapping of paws
That stop once they reach my feet. 

Clara Meyers (Pomona '25)