Slippery Fish

Slippery fish,
who knew you were happy in that bowl?
I spent so many years scoping out surface
for you, foaming at the mouth with eager
anxiety.
You were buried under the sand.

Slippery fish,
who knew you were wounded in the water?
I felt so many years of frenetic family
scoping our surface, eager with mouth spent
foaming
Digging out the soul in the sand.

Slippery fish,
who knew you were dying in the water?
I spent so many years finding foam for us to eager
surface for us to scope,
anxiety buried in the bowl
You are floating over the sand.

Ode to My Drawer’s Drawers

Oh you, gentle drawer.
Caught with your pants down again, someone peering into your host
of hoard.

I’ve found the pile of photographs, each snippet of life
shaded with perfect light, or candid 5×7
waking the worst of sorrow and sleep and sweet painful singing

from me.

I’ve found the green notebook, giving life
of lingering wishes, and narrations of new
intimate declarations unpacked

in its spine.

Do you not see the undeveloped film? The wonders
in your cave?
Are the feelings found in the flurry of fever
at being discovered again?

Do not tempt me, gentle drawer,
Your wares are meant to be encased inside
Your ravages each their crystal showcase

unlocking my cry.

I’ve found her here, her jeweled necklace broken
at the clasp and unwearable
she

can’t materialize from your depths, dear drawer.

Let her rest.
Let her be.
Show how you can have pity on me

Oh you, gentle drawer.

High Tide With Forte: a prose poem

We walk in stuttered strides. You the endless putterer, and I the parader. I want to feel the flux waters on my ankles, wading in the wake of evening. I want you to accompany me, your chatter easy and continuous, and bubbling like your laughter.
But your fingers find the sand, patting your palms on the grainy ground, and scooping cupfuls, captured in the rapture of your grin. Caught in the wrinkles of your knees as you sit and sieve and play.
You are no longer a child, but your words rip without warning. Your eyes glazed over in the furious patting of the sand, the slurpy lap of the tide inching closer to your back. The castle you are creating in your head keeps tumbling back into the earth as you desecrate each mound with your frustration.
You lose your ring as you finger the holes in the battlements, your castle creating shapes for the sea to swallow.

Your fingers disappear and quake as you work, the water walking faster, your creations bubbling forth like curses and you desecrate the sand again. You tantrum through the last round of building, your fingers clenched in reddened stumps, your bashing bringing forth tears from the sky, and soon high tide is washing around you, the sun dipping below the horizon.

I watch as the swallow of your sea takes you.

Silent.