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.