Kenzie McCurdy
SUNSET
The sky was the colour of Prince Edward Island clay.
Not wet clay, but clay after it had been moulded into undefinable shapes by little hands
and dried in the sun on a summer day.
Good thing it was evening, she thought, comforted, remembering the old saying her father
would repeat time and again when she was a child:
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning”.
She came here seldom.
The simple sounds of the sea and whistling wind that used to ground her
made her uneasy now, unsettled;
if she wanted to feel insignificant she could have stayed home in her condo in the city
where at least she had Netflix to keep her company.
At the edge of the shore she watched a sandpiper scurry along the beach.
They always looked so worried, running back and forth and in circles,
peeping frantically.
She always imagined they were mothers
looking for their lost babies,
abducted
into a neighbouring nest.
That’s because she knew how it felt
to lose a child.
Emerging from her reverie, she noticed the sky was no longer red and she could see the stars;
so many stars.
It took her breath away.
Kenzie McCurdy was born in Montreal. She moved to Ottawa in 2004 for work as a social worker. Kenzie started writing poetry at the age
of 18 in a writing course she took in college. The format stuck and she’s been writing poetry ever since. Her first poem won her $1000 US. Kenzie still
considers herself an amateur, and feels fortunate to have had her work published in a handful of Canadian and American publications.
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