Page 6 - Contrast1997

Sailor's Widow

Been twenty years since I stood here,
watched blue wind burnish blank sky
while I, impotent, shrieked violence
at the night sea, the same sea
who now feigns penance at my stripped feet.
Washing them with her sweet cajoling waves,
she murmurs her siren's sigh and
pushes, pulls, preys
upon the last grains of my sanity.

Straining, I press my ear
beyond her sigh, beyond
the distance
to hear you rocking Sadie
in the upstairs bedroom,
and there I catch you
immersed in the dreams
our daughter wears on her face,
a jar of fireflies fast sleeping
in the corner of her arm-

water slaps, abrades,
and dissolves the memory.

Insatiate, the rhythmic tide sips
at the shore's edge, thirsty for all of you.

Sharon Campbell Snyder

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