Pauline Uchmanowicz (d.)

Egypt Beach, Massachusetts

A pre-swimmer practices
dead man’s float, plays

duck-duck-goose, then
after lessons she drifts

back to the family
towels and umbrella,

where on his fingertip
her father spins a ball

as precisely as a planet
homes into syzygy,

the girl’s attention poised
on the frontier that separates

matter from logic. Edging
toward the orb, head arced

with limbs stretched wide,
the child forms a five-

pointed starfish—she could
wish upon her own body

for mastery of flutter kick
and arm over arm crawl.

A flea pushes around a granule.
Time presses against nets.


About the Author

Pauline Uchmanowicz is the author of poetry collection Starfish (Twelve Winters Press, 2016) as well two poetry chapbooks and has received residency grants at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. A freelance writer in the Hudson Valley, her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in Crazyhorse, Ohio Review, Ploughshares, Provincetown Arts Journal, Radcliffe Quarterly, Woodstock Times, Z Magazine, and else-where. She is associate professor of English and director of Creative Writing at SUNY New Paltz.

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