We, the Ocean
— Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve
At a Glance
- • A poem of return to the ocean that pressed us out long ago, leaving “a memory of water” — the body wading in, uncertain whether it walks on the sea or the sky.
- • Author: Olivera Andonoska
- • Form: Free verse, long stanzas, a single-line turn at “The entire sky is reflected in the ocean.”
- • Collection: We Are Eve
- • Theme: Return, memory of water, and origin in the sea
- • Epigraph: Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve
We return to the great ocean
with doubt wrapped around our ankles:
have we become unrecognizable
or did it completely forget
that it pressed us out of itself,
out of its mighty depths,
a long, long time ago,
leaving its mark inside us –
a memory of water.
We return to it, having once been cast out.
For a long time we dreamed of this paradise,
for a long time we wove stories
as one weaves baskets from twigs,
filling the gaps
with burlap,
placing new words into empty spaces.
We want the ocean to remember us.
We approach it slowly,
dipping our knees,
and once we get used to the cold,
we go deeper.
Thighs
navel
breasts
shoulders.
We stand like this, still hesitant.
The entire sky is reflected in the ocean.
Suddenly we feel our eyes burn,
something pecks us in the veins,
suddenly we cannot tell
whether perhaps all along
we have been walking on the sky,
suddenly we wonder
who are all these people around us
and what is this surrounding us.
That's how easy the passing was.
About Olivera Andonoska
Olivera Andonoska (b. 1980, Prilep, North Macedonia) is a philologist and proofreader specializing in the Macedonian language. She is the author of the poetry collection We Are Eva, which received the Antevo Pero Award in 2025, and the short story collection How I Killed Vera and How She Was Reborn. She has also published children’s books. Her poetry and prose have appeared in literary magazines, and she has participated in literary festivals. In addition to her own writing, Andonoska works as an editor on a range of publications.
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