—for Rachel Carson, Newcastle Inn, Southport, Maine The wall photograph—taken right there— a girl, lying on your stomach, face almost touching the tidal pond. Looking for what? Water fleas, red-plumed tube worms, the widening rings of being. How much time to see— as much time as it takes to make a friend— cunners & hat pin urchins, snails & gills, rock grit & us. I’ve read about Aristotle & limpets, how a muscled foot locomotes into the sea to feed. How a limpet’s shell imprints like a scar/tattoo on the home-rock. And the limpet always returns to the same spot. Aristotle never figured out how this homing works. A home can be a room in an inn, beyond the deep & wide, Sheepscot, sun-dried rocks, glistening.
Vivian Eyre is a Rhode Island-based poet, and the author of the poetry chapbook, To the Sound (Finishing Line Press). Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as The Massachusetts Review, The Fourth River, Moon City Review, and elsewhere. She served as a rescue volunteer for marine life on Long Island.
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