Looking toward South Bristol
- Looking toward South Bristol
O impermanent tide, low or high,where does your deed fall?Does it waddle to and fro,skimming the headless sealthat bangs against rocks? Does itcover the purple tourmaline so bluebeach glass must be scraped free?
Hauling fields of fog across their backs,waves collapse against the shore.Minks slither over rocks to checkwhat the crows forgot to catch.We can’t even see Inner Heron islandor the toy lobster boats pulling trapstrolling from this float of mist.
Does the tide take the ferry to New Brunswickor funnel along Tecumseh Way to meetthe notary who performs marriages anddowsings? Does it resist stoppingat all the coves people from Connecticuthave bought up? Doesn’t it knowthe coast has always brought people
like us to their knees, bending to the view,digging in sand and seaweed so thatthere haven’t been any starfish herefor years but the few deformed by glue,propped on the mantles of cottages,begetting the fog fixing the sand,beached-up prows, houses that once were ships. [End Page 137]
Elizabeth Rees’s most recent chapbook, Tilting Gravity, won the Codhill Press contest in 2009. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Partisan Review, Mid-American Review. New work is forthcoming in Agni, Atlanta Review, and Artful Dodge.
