Can we take the time to get it right?
I’m a cut-and-paste poet; I’ll fake it til I know it, I’m a new world seamstress in wanton distress, ripping open my own sleek silk dress, a cast away in the middle of this busy port, too mad with love or longing to stem the losses or stop the reports, watching my ships sail in and out again, my women crying after their missing men, my steamboats running upriver, heavy with rum and gun runners, dirty with brand new money, and tired old honies, wheels churning and pouring in a liquid roar, I’m a freedom fighter in this endless war, I’m a sweet English captain with a raw pirate crew, I am me and I am you.
Undertow.
sand and soot and ashes, beachcombers miss this, miss us, ocean foam and froth, spits and undertow, tidal pools and tidal pull, rain on sand and rock and sea, driftwood.
What’s it like to watch the stars standing in a tidepool? How does a starfish feel against your fingertips? Does the tide go out differently in the middle of the night? Does the ocean make you feel small, safe, unable to hurt anyone in your meekness? Can you hear mussels gasping for sea water, clinging to a cliff base, left exposed by the tides? Have you ever seen the sky like this? Have you ever smelled the sea like this?
Have you ever been sucked down so fast before?
