For Marie Claire's Makers Issue, author and poet Leila Mottley writes about the power of the ocean. Mottley's debut poetry collection, woke up no light, hits shelves April 16.
The Pacific waves keep rolling. Foam of the mouth, thunder, split up a child from her mother. This is what geography does. A salt history, a global Great Migration we are all still too terrified to be in awe of. I don't like the ocean, but I love the water. I like still. I like quiet with a drip drip and no movement. Stay where I grew up, on my back door step. This family has moved too much.
