By Julie Hassett

Featured Art: The Red Kerchief by Claude Monet

after a painting by Winslow Homer, Boston MFA

Blue skirt a bell, percussive
on her calves, basket full of mussels,
unable to quell the surge,
red hair a banner,
she glares at a ship which lifts,
smacks the swell.
Spumes geyser over hull.
Black shoes plant on granite,
root to her core,
a ballast that will not crack
no matter the force
of gusts from the north,

a gush that rushes her sternum,
alone, again, by the ocean.

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Julie Hassett is a social worker in private practice, focusing on EMDR and therapeutic writing, who works in North Kingstown, RI and lives in Narragansett with her two year old Havanese. Her recent publications include Blueline, Philadelphia Review, DuPage Review, Naugatuck River Review, Loft Anthology, Origami Poetry Project, Ocean State Review, Word Soup, Main Street Rag, Paterson Literary Review and Comstock Review. Her chapbook was published by the Newport Review’s collection of Premier Poets. She has worked on ekphrastic poetry projects through the Wickford Art Association, Artist’s Cooperative Gallery, and Hera Gallery.

Originally published in NOR 18: Fall 2015