After Danusha Laméris’ “Leg”

March 2022

We’re walking down by the edge of the water, Mom and I—
her blonde hair being swept up, tangling in the gusts of wind
coming off the glistening ocean and sand being whipped at our legs—
when we come across a washed up jellyfish. 
Its membrane a dead gray that had been stepped on and 
squashed into pieces by the tiny feet connected to small humans carrying 
floaties and a shovel. The lifeless tentacles pointing out to sea, toward where, 
we think, the rest of the bloom swims freely, however they are now missing one— carried off to shore in the retreating tide. Mom points at the jellyfish, 
says, Don’t you feel bad for it? Look at those tentacles. 

I kick sand up with my toes as we stand and watch, seeing the tiny
seashells that surround it, stabbing the bottoms of our 
feet as we walk further down the beach, toward the 
fishing pier in the distance. As we near it, all I can smell is the odor of 
dead and dying fish that will be, no doubt, sold to the waterfront restaurants. 
We turn back, coming again to the lone jellyfish. I turn to Mom, say, 
I think it might be better off this way. 

Mom looks out at the ocean, her happy place, and I think she knows 
what I mean. Even on a good day, we are all still playing the game of 
trying to survive while giants are constantly trying to step on, crush, 
obliterate the little hope we have left. 
We walk a little further, past the quiet sand dunes with their 
steady beachgrass, standing tall and unafraid, knowing no one 
would dare try to take their place. 

It’s hot. I sit under the umbrella at our spot on the beach. 
I think of Mom, basking in the sunlight, covered in tanning oil.
No one else has blue of her eyes, the gentleness of her hands, 
the small tattoo on her right ankle; but many others house the same 
voice in their head, saying they aren’t enough, and the world will 
crush them if they let it.

Her life, the one she kept on living after my brother was born 
still, no heartbeat and blue fingers. Being there to wipe our tears 
after she wipes her own. 

I think of how I’ve come to not just call her Mom, but also
my comfort, my support, my heart. I don’t know what a mother is 
if not your crutches, your soft bed after being beaten down. 
A gentle light, a reflection of what your bones will grow into, and who 
your heart will long for on your deathbed. Female, and human, and fragile. 

And when I again find the jellyfish in my mind’s eye, 
I think for a moment of Mom, of the connection between the two, 
of the humanity that is left in death’s wake. 

But it’s only later, staring into the deep blue of the sea, 
that I imagine Mom and the jellyfish as one;
beautiful in the soft glow of life, 
but, in the abyss of loss and fear, they crack.