the tide rises, the tide falls | an oceanic literary magazine

The temptation is real – the impulse to fall, to plunge.
Mirador shift on the Rig, observation duty...

I guess the moon snail won’t object
if I get down beside it in the sand, dig...

Mother, where do we go from here?
From your scorched body we wander...

On the train I try to break the distance.
On the bus, my hellos too small and my smiles...

I.
You’re telling her jokes as you walk through shallow...

I exist by the shore, inhaling the sharp salty dusk breeze.
I am standing here, oxidizing, by the dying body of a beached whale...

I will wait for you on the beach at Montauk,
with a plate of fried shrimp...

Tide pushes these crusted histories.
Tendrilled, tangled, nylon scraps...

The earth is drowning
in its own blood...

The temperature today is above one hundred
degrees...

what does meaning mean in a land of silence?
I...

You are a driftwood breath, a mud-pinched sigh,
slow travelling, slow gathering...