Ashley Cline | on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, mountains of seaweed grow

An avid introvert, full-time carbon-based life-form & aspiring himbo, Ashley Cline is the author of four chapbooks of poetry: & watch how easily the jaw sings of god (Glass Poetry Press, 2021), electric infinities (Variant Lit, 2023), cowabungaly yours at the end of the world (Gutslut Press, 2023), & loading a new continent (Glass Poetry Press, 2025). A two-time Pushcart nominee & Best of the Net 2020 finalist, her best at all-you-can-eat sushi is 5 rolls in 11 minutes.

Ashley Cline's Website

Also by Ashley Cline: electric infinities cowabungaly yours at the end of the world a series of Augusts

Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry: & watch how easily the jaw sings of god

March 5, 2025

Ashley Cline

on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, mountains of seaweed grow

label it miracle, this tilt of earth. your breath against my ear — an act of creation. as in: i am honeysuckle-lunged & waiting, fingers ripe with salt. label it miracle: the way an American goldfinch sits among a field of dandelions — yellow is as yellow does. label it miracle, & a surefooted sapling takes root in the stump of an old, felled tree. & i cannot write a better poem than that which already exists. believe me: i’ve tried. believe me — there is a patch of wildflowers off the highway that is the most perfect garden you will ever see.

“In writing this piece, I was reminded of an incredibly simple truth. One which occasionally gets shuffled from view and — when said out loud — even borders on the cliché and cringe, but remains true all the same. Poetry is everywhere. It’s the American goldfinch I watched after a walk with my dog, it’s the bit of city planning that leaves some feral flora blooming by the highway; it’s the headline “On Mexico’s Caribbean coast, mountains of seaweed grow.” This poem is really just a series of vignettes. Such small moments that are very real and, I assume one could argue, very mundane — and I love her all the more for it. The title, “On Mexico’s Caribbean coast, mountains of seaweed grow,” is taken from an article of the same name, written by Mark Stevenson (AP News, Aug. 30, 2022).