5)a
Having cut into the arm nothing was revealed,
no secret landscape,
or true hide of the beast.
Every scar a day marked
with coral, shells of whelk
a bundle of feathers,
artifacts making a roof of time.
Incisions are seasonal indicators,
every calendar an unveiling of memory,
so much hibiscus flowering,
mouthfuls of expiation
dripping on the old white table,
nothing but meat beneath the rind.
Another revelation of cutting,
edge is not a tool of remorse,
edge is not a promise of discovery,
there is no chart of this shoreline
walking without compass
or timepiece, gradually realizing
there is no arrival or departure,
only sea and wind, tide and sky,
husks of what we once were
scattered, a mulch of abandonment.
Tongue of ash, of ember,
pale of teeth, voices of gatekeepers,
voices of blade and stone,
translucent shavings of moon
the heavy consonants of grief
wedged in the throat.
Wind unfurls from its roost
in the shaggy cabbage palms,
another day lifts from the sea
herons and egrets stretch
languid as predators ever are.
Your hands have framed a doorway
our grief has poured through
sluiced onto dry sand,
you gather the names of my scars,
scatter them on waves
fetched up from furthest shore,
you burnish the darkness
buried in my eyes, you fill
torso with shells, gourd of emptiness,
shells gathered from sandbar
another artifact of time constructed on loss,
sea is not a hollow reliquary
of sorrow
Having cut into the arm nothing was revealed,
no secret landscape,
or true hide of the beast.
Every scar a day marked
with coral, shells of whelk
a bundle of feathers,
artifacts making a roof of time.
Incisions are seasonal indicators,
every calendar an unveiling of memory,
so much hibiscus flowering,
mouthfuls of expiation
dripping on the old white table,
nothing but meat beneath the rind.
Another revelation of cutting,
edge is not a tool of remorse,
edge is not a promise of discovery,
there is no chart of this shoreline
walking without compass
or timepiece, gradually realizing
there is no arrival or departure,
only sea and wind, tide and sky,
husks of what we once were
scattered, a mulch of abandonment.
Tongue of ash, of ember,
pale of teeth, voices of gatekeepers,
voices of blade and stone,
translucent shavings of moon
the heavy consonants of grief
wedged in the throat.
Wind unfurls from its roost
in the shaggy cabbage palms,
another day lifts from the sea
herons and egrets stretch
languid as predators ever are.
Your hands have framed a doorway
our grief has poured through
sluiced onto dry sand,
you gather the names of my scars,
scatter them on waves
fetched up from furthest shore,
you burnish the darkness
buried in my eyes, you fill
torso with shells, gourd of emptiness,
shells gathered from sandbar
another artifact of time constructed on loss,
sea is not a hollow reliquary
of sorrow
Peach Delphine is from Tampa, Florida. Former cook, infatuated with the undeveloped Gulf coast. Can be found on twitter @PeachDelphine.