MERMAID by Ruben Briseno Reveles |
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MONOTONY by Frank C. Praeger As dwarfs pause disbelieving and mermaids dumbly listen to stars and the soil underneath quickens with noise; a passing over, swollen, gluttonous, slackens and, further, stops. Where to go? Should I do more than crouch? Follow a stray feather, disappear in the monotony of each clock. |
STONE by Fabio Sassi |
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PRUFROCK AT THE COAST by Jeanine Stevens What little we have ever understood is like an offering we make beside the sea. —Ursula Le Guin When you've been too long inland, you wonder which beach it will be, the crowded one with no entrance fee, or where you must scramble down a craggy bluff. You decide on the flat one, toilets and a $7 senior discount. The sign says, "Rip Currents Unsafe!" You didn't plan on swimming anyway, just came to walk, sit and watch. You've heard the sand is good for feet, cool, soft and spongy, a wet caramel color. At the far end, waves cracking dark boulders, you sit in late summer salt spray, sticky and sweet. Suddenly aggressive tide laps and sucks your beach chair. Returning on cracked shells, stones and smooth glass, it's slow going but you pick your way, stimulating, even painful like a giant pinch or a lit match held to ascertain consciousness or sleepwalking. The fog is in, visibility low. You put on your sandals, pink feet full of tiny cuts. You attempt to make a still life, nature morte, from orange seaweed, a gull's feather, crab claw, and twisted driftwood, but the dun colors are too boring, too reflective of your drab life. Yet, you were lucky to avoid sleeper waves and strong backwash. The feather in its whiteness and strength, you save between the pages of a book. |
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