I heard your sister got verdigris,
a lonely burden for one so sweet,
to carry the weight, a coastal rhythm night after day.
Salt stained patina the surgeon can’t remedy.
I dig through the sand that weights my heart,
see cobble stoned streets licked with a salted tongue,
and look to the fathomless/fathoms of ocean,
I don’t want to share her sedentary fate.
Slick with the weeds of time,
that resisted so many waves of fury,
I see her, daughter of Gaia,
calamitous,
ominous,
wondrous being.
A watery commander of the greatest swells/swelling,
the purpose of those held aloft and dragged ashore.
Wrecked by low tide, skeletal ribs of wood
stand proud/proudly showing the intransigence of man.
I know that to set forth to a new world I must
absorb the salted tears of Oceanus.
Issue 3
LIVING FLOTSAM
Kathie-Louise Clarke is a British-raised writer living in Oakland, California. She has written throughout her life for pleasure and for work. She is inspired to write about the human condition, with a focus on love, loss, and the beauty of the natural world.