Tuesday Poem: From The Water Series (Post-deluvian)

The Comb And The Mirror

The comb for our failure to honor chaos,

the way we try to untangle the world,

the furrows we cut, and other ills.

The mirror for our over love of ourselves,

the way we think dominion over other creatures,

for shackles and blades and all demonic devices.

Too many times, Luna spies
one or the other at Barter, though
nowadays, no one will touch them.

That’s when her whole body
fills with dread of the tempest,

for comb and mirror stir up
the old woman’s anger. She tosses
in her sleep, and soon come a whirl

and a hideous pelting, the spinning
edges of wind heavy with water,
soon the rise of white mares

in the waves, the sky’s dark keening,

the punishing hand of Marina smashing

everything we make into matchsticks.

When it’s over, survivors try to

make amends by letting go

pairs of sparrows, into the wreckage.

And Luna has learned much from

watching these little survivors

as they glean what they can

from nature’s fury

Tuesday Poem: From The Water Series

Mermaid/Man

Luna and Sol take turns

diving into the engulfments.

Buildings listing this way and that,

barnacled shipwrecks, most of their

window glass broken, or already salvaged.

Big wooden houses like temples adrift on the tides.

She sees others like them,

brightening near the surface,

darkening as they go under, trolling for

the souls of the drowned, caged as they

came to be, in boughten goods, in pretties,

usefuls, things you can hold in your hands.

Luna finds a plastic bucket, a sand etched

green glass bottle, a box of sodden

paper she can pulp and dry anew,

a camera filled with water

and tiny jellyboys.

Best is a jug unblemished,

she can plug with one

from the box of stoppers.

Sol saves his vigor for tools.