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Metaphors at Low Tide The tide bows out like an obsequious servant till sand flats stretch, vast as the floor of a janitor’s nightmare. Clumps of green fleece are wet mops gone clammy—again, his bad dream. Careful as a Jain with no one to sweep for him, I tiptoe among the periwinkles. Hermit crabs scurry like tow trucks around the snails’ stalled traffic. In the world of their puddle it is all so purposeful! Gulls, which earlier dropped clam-bombs on the beachhead, are calm now—Victorian women wading, or penguins on their tundra. What am I to them, I wonder? Cumulus? Colossus? Or are they less curious than I am, examining these razor clams ditched by hoodlums when they heard the foghorn’s siren? Straw surf—dried eel grass—breaks along the beach. Miles of sand marcelled by wind pantomime the waves which brought that silent surf here. No undertow is safer. Drained, the bay’s a closet opened up to show a child no monster lurks there; filled, the darkness irks her still with fears she can’t explain. To calm her, then, the tide—a patient mother—goes out yet again. 18 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...

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