Tonight's Poet Corner: Don't Push Me

Don't Push Me
by Belinda Roddie

I've been tested, once or twice,
by a god with scales on his face,
a salt-soaked kelp beard, and
half a mind to drink the sea dry
in just a few swallows. He's not a fan
of deserts, but the fish and the seaweed
taste so good to him. And he's sent
my humble scow onto the rocks
a few more times than I'd like.

Once I settled in a suburb thirty miles
from the ocean, however, he let me be.
Though my wife thought that barnacles
were starting to grow on the windows, like
pieces of fossilized glass from a broken
stein of beer, all the suds hardening into
miniature bones. I checked her in
for a fever, and she burned up hotter
than the arid atmosphere around us,
our bodies baked against white sheets.

He told me he hadn't touched me, not
this time, not since I put away the sailor's
cap and settled while cleaning the stains
off my soul. I have half a mind to drink
the sea myself, just to spite him before
my blood cells shrivel into wrinkled veils
and I leave my dehydrated husk to wave
on a pike outside my two-story house.

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