Faith Shearin

Faith Shearin was in an MFA program in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, she switched over to Sarah Lawrence’s poetry program - and she’s since published seven collections of poetry that have garnered numerous awards. But in more recent years she’s made another stab at fiction - with considerable success. Shearin’s debut Young Adult novel, “Lost River 1918,” has won a literary contest known as the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize, her newest YA novel ‘My Sister Lives in the Sea’ will be out in September.

Last Swim of Summer

Our pool is still blue but a few leaves

have fallen, floating on the surface

of summer. The other swimmers

went home last week, tossed

their faded bathing suits aside,

so my daughter and I are alone

in the water which has grown colder

like a man’s hand at the end of

a romance. The lifeguard is under

her umbrella but her bags are packed

for college. We are swimming against

change, remembering the endless

shores of June: the light like lemonade,

fireflies inside our cupped hands,

watermelon night. We are swimming

towards the darkness of what

is next, walking away from the sounds

of laughter and splashing, towels

wrapped around the dampness of our loss.

— Faith Shearin