Contributor Series 7: The Confessional Diary of Bone
Once More
By Alice Shapiro
Bone tired, picking sardine shards
lodged between his ancient ochre-tinted canines
an old gent seesaws, supported on a perfect
wood-turned stick embellished by ever deepening nicks
notched each year for what seems a century.
Her air-borne cries
strike his attention over the whelp of waves
that slap one giant boulder smooth
competing for his time, condescending, jeering
at his conceit. Bones will melt,
salted ankles bleached into the sea’s blue entreaty.
He is about to drown.
He dare not move.
As if from the wind
her voice beguiles
as she floats nearer
in a cloud of tears.
Out the upswept corner
of his
watery eye
her spectral form
seems true and clear.
He can’t decide: drift into a mocking sea
or follow one last hot haunting eve
where his bones may press again
against her promise
pushing back the tide’s inevitable swallow?
Alice Shapiro’s most recent poem to appear at vox poetica was Licorice Cement: Revisited, published as part of Contributor Series 6: A Currency of Words.
Wow, what a story in lovely imagery.
Very interesting poem. I would have read more.