Mathematics of Water Waves

Wendy Vardaman

    Sometimes she’d wade in toe to ankle to half
    way up the calf. Sometimes stroll
    along the lacy edge of the spill,
    sand into sea, sea over sand, and
    still not understand: to swim where you can stand
    waveless, unwavering, is not to swim at all:
    nor breathing in that shallow circumstance control,
    and when she built a raft,

    you couldn’t help but laugh a little to yourself
    to see her paddle out like that, to see
    her make for land that looks so
    close, then flail those fin limbs as the coast shelf
    falls away and one wave rolled over and through
    its corkscrew path, predictable as folly.

    
Wendy Vardaman - Wendy Vardaman, has a Ph.D. in English from University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Engineering from Cornell University. Co-editor of Verse Wisconsin, her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals. She lives in Madison, WI with husband, Thomas DuBois, has three children, and works for the children’s theater company, The Young Shakespeare Players Wendy Vardaman  in this issue... Tags: Thanal Online, web magazine dedicated for poetry and literature Wendy Vardaman, Mathematics of Water Waves
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