Blur

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