The Oracle
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I slipped my shackles and hid at the pier. Shadows became tactile there. The stevedores spit tentacles of chew and keened for the absent freight: I had tipped from the ship’s rusted pocket, unloaded in fear at midnight’s bell, to tamp the squid’s inked hiss, his prophecy curling blacker against black waters. The letters, I heard later, spun to embrace the hull, spelling disaster. They could not be abraded with salt. That permanence followed me everywhere. In the taverns that bordered the shore, I rubbed strong beer against my teeth, but neither could my tongue corrode the sea’s grit. I licked brine from my palms, waiting for its nutrients to absorb, hoping for a shade of the oyster to taste. In a clouded slip of glass, I discovered my mouth had also blackened.
Always, I would speak the black stain. [End Page 1006]
Emily August is a Provost’s Graduate Fellow completing the PhD in English at Vanderbilt University, where she teaches courses in literature. She received the MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. She has published poetry in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Quarterly West, and other journals.
