Herne Bay in the Year of Our Lord 2025

Jessie  and  I  are accosted  at a tiny beach
by a drunk man with a black eye | who goes
so far as to float out to us in the dark water

          he wants us to help him swim as if he
isn’t already swimming  | or to touch him or
be pulled under

                                  calls us cunts when we
move away | Jessie still too polite |   her No
thank  |  you engrained in our limbs |  as he
returns to land to growl and vulture

                                                           we tread
and seethe  |  immortal jellyfish  |  medusae
readying to sting | bracing a return to shore
near naked with sharpened teeth

                                                             I almost
cackle | this body hunted in every lifetime |
some gorgon | caramelized by the sun | my
throat a siren eager to shriek

                                                He has no idea
who he’s picked to fuck with

                                                     Our feet slip
like tentacles  in the slick  silt of seaweed  |
Jessie  sneers   A man would never have to
endure this | and we breathe deep | before
we turn back to devour

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Carrie Rudzinski is an American-New Zealand poet who has featured in Bustle, HuffPost, and Teen Vogue. She won Best New Aotearoa Play for Hysterical at the Wellington Theatre Awards and completed her Master’s of Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.