by LE Francis
High tide hides the scuttle — ragged,
molted half-claws & casings of sand fleas,
bloated corpses of kelp that swelled
under the sun until their briny bellies burst.
You ask beyond the surface, beyond
the disorienting lilt of the current, beyond
the soft hiss of the waves becoming
& unbecoming. Because every direction is
possible, every plotted course infinite.
There are a million ways to turn back
on yourself & discover that you had been
right all along, or wrong — you know what?
It doesn’t matter. There is all in the body
of the ocean & all in the whirring heart
of a hydrogen atom & even that is a question
of how many books you’ve read & what dread,
infinitesimal sense haunts your summer night vigils
thinking too many stars, too much sky, what the hell
is the point of trying to know any of it as myself?
But it is not to be known — ragged, empty mugs litter
the desk; an abandoned verse, a half-painted canvas,
several chapters that need a careful eye. It is already there
& all is nothing but open water, infinite ways to plot a course,
to turn back, to believe something for a minute, a measure,
a stanza, a lifetime. The waves are giants before they break
but you know them by different names & they know you
by every voice that has called
in desperation, in awe; felt
but not followed, a resigning
current, grasping for a moment
before it dissolves.
LE Francis (she/her) is a recovering arts journalist living in the rainshadow of the Washington Cascades. She is the co-EIC of Sage Cigarettes Magazine. She is a Pushcart-nominated poet & her debut chapbook THIS SPELL OF SONG & STAR is available through Bottlecap Press. She sings & plays bass in the shoegaze project The Bone Palace. Find her online at nocturnical.com.
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