The surf rumbles along like a misspent
youth, turning its pockets inside out, dumping
stolen goods. Beachgoers march like hooded patriots,
scour wet grains for polished stones, shells,
hanks of driftwood, smoky glass, jewels
and coins. Everyone wants something from the sea.
The ashes of a father float among the grit—
him reborn a porpoise whose hake pierces
my peripheral, as my chin tilts toward the waning moon
and I’m counting cloud formations that slide
across dusk like the bi-conical beads of an abacus.
He’s there, just beneath the jacket of grey
and I want to wrap my arms around a rubbery mammalian
body but I know it’s forbidden. Chasing ghosts
is its own kind of death. The downpour unhitches soil
from the cliff, uproots stinging nettle, coyote
brush, slips of lady fern in a heady rush of destruction
or perhaps, reunion. We don’t know. Earth reaching
for the sea. Surf racing toward the cliff. Bark
of a sea lion, ancient call of a conch. Rain fills our eyes
and ears, pummels the small bones of our faces.
Paola Bruni is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, and winner of the Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Prize, as well as a finalist for the Mudfish Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in such journals as The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Five Points Journal, and Rattle, among others. Her debut book of poetry is an epistolary collection titled how do you spell the sound of crickets (Paper Angel Press, May 2022).
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Something stunning this way comes. I'm living in this poem. I'm THERE