—I  DON’T LIKE SPIDERS AND SNAKES

 

Blackfin

 

I’m eating Capricorn 

and Sagittarius 

mouth full 

trying not to choke

trying to get my fill 

of romance and bullshit 

satisfied and sanctified

in a single setting 

because there’s nothing 

you can say to 

make me take back 

what you said 

or how you said it

what you did

with your alligator trap

long and wide as a

high-dive board

Words matter 

like the ocean does 

every tide is different 

but the waves all hold 

the same stitch of truth 

like a shelf of filthy flotsam 

bobbing on the surface

Even as a beaten child 

I knew that much 

how the swell 

looks astonishing 

from the golden

safety of the shore

as it slaps then wraps 

you into the undertow 

clenching your chest 

with a vice-grip tenacity 

while your dreams end up 

as air bubbles staggering 

through the liquid murk

slowly breaching the scrim 

where there’s finally sunshine 

a strand of consolation 

and a sprig of reluctant contrition