Over the Sea Wall

Featured in the January 2021 Issue of The Open Doors Review. View Magazine Here.

Poetry by Cynthia Boorujy

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I bought my daughter a scarf to wrap round her head

She wanted blood red like mine

Not the sweet pastels we dress the young

Thinking we must ease them into 

The searing violence of color

We are led by these saturations

My law school professor 

Whose rhetoric was as crisp and elegant 

As the moss green suits he had cut in Paris

The fire eater I met in the city square

I followed him up the hill

He played guitar in the grass

Looking out through round violet shades

Or the one who never cut his hair

And favored t-shirts with tangerine surfboards

But she still has years

Before she is drawn to siren men

The sun is searing

Drying the water that splashes over the sea wall

Leaving rough salt on our forearms 

on cats’ tails and faded motor bikes

Cover yourself I tell her

We have far to walk

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Author Bio: Cynthia Boorujy is a writer and performer who has performed and has had her writing produced across the US. She has written scripts, plays, poetry, and short fiction. She currently resides in Santa Monica, CA and is working on her debut novel.