by Lorri Neilsen Glenn
My feet slip into the old green waders, damp
and too large, and I lumber down to the sea
in the dim light because I ache for the sound
of it, the shushing and trembling waves
that hiss at the toes of my boots, a kind
of summoning. Ghosts sidle up, press against
me in the chill, millennia of howls and cries
and silent boats dark as stones drifting like
sighs toward the bottom, stories clinging to
their hulls. An open coffin. I’m never the only
company I keep, and the blacker the water, the
greater the weight of knowing this. The moon
is behind the trees, the sky powdered with ash-
white stars. Lately, inside and outside soften,
meld: flesh, flora: boots, seaweed: breath, salt
air: slumber. The blur a vessel I enter, alert
for the glint of a torch, a sign. Like this cracked
blue cup, caught between rocks, its tumbled
edges porous, its handle tethering fingers to
all who once gripped it. All I will never know.
— from Juniper Volume 3, Issue 3