Tonight's Poet Corner: Man Overboard

Man Overboard
by Belinda Roddie

Soon enough
they'll dredge my body out of the salty harbor
scrubbing my bone clean of the stinging debris
stripping the fibers of the sea from my teeth
My eyes scream for second sight

If they're not careful
I'll sink again into the muddy waves
and the currents will carry my shadow
from the canal to the docks, and I

will paint my silhouette across every white sail
of ships squatting in their communal circle
discussing the schedule for next week
over bread crumbs and seagulls' shrieks

The noise will be pronounced enough
to revive me from my listless stupor
I promise that if you give me a trident
I will become a brand new underwater god

rather than the sad husk of seaweed-stained
humanity strewn across the driftwood-clogged
shore, where children dig their claws into
the sand to find food, and dogs sniff at my thinning
hair with no desire to howl for help

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Today's OneWord: Madman

Here we have the madman, standing at the podium. He screams threats and obscenities, and the meager audience cheers. They wear red hats and stamp their feet and gesture to the wind, taunting the spirits and daring them to change the course of time, to change the course of history, which never, ever ends. The madman is strutting. He's grinning at his prize. In perhaps a year, the world will change - the colors will all dim.
Read more

Today's OneWord: Statues

Why were the statues going white, and why was the rain cascading in sheets? I tried to find solace by the window, but the world outside had become nothing but glass. Blankets of water blurred the semblance of life that I stretched my mind to detect. Near me, my lover was asleep on the divan with wine pooling across her lap. Her curls lay in wet swaths around the warm nape of her neck. The statues would crumble in due time. The deluge was impending. We both would drown.
Read more