At the Lake
by Mea Cohen
By the shoreline of the lake, sitting on the large gray rock bed,
beneath the oaks,
I watch her undress and wade into the water.
She looks youthful. I am silent, and above
the sun conspires to push us together.
In less than a year,
she’ll be dead,
and neither of us knows it.
This is not a unique story—
The future is an unstoppable current.
It’s time that baffles us,
this full weight that must take us down.
She knows I’m watching her.
she likes to know I’m there as she goes under.
Mea Cohen is a writer based in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her work has appeared in West Trade Review, OKAY Donkey, Big Whoopie Deal, Barely South Review, and more. She was nominated for best micro-fiction in 2024 and 2026. She earned her MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University, where she was a contributing editor for The Southampton Review. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief for The Palisades Review.