By the sextant of her hips
She Comes Out Of The Sea
For Marlene
She comes out of the sea, brinesalt and sweat,
tides wrapped about her in kelping bands that
snug her muscles from an hour of paddling.
She may have oared in from Papeete bearing
water from the basket of her broad shoulders,
stranged by the fruit of a smile you barely know.
So you watch her step from the sleek hull, her
form navigable by deliberate observation, pick
her out from the others by the sextant of her hips.
She trods sand negotiating new treaties with gravity,
unaware that your eyes confer Magellanic latitudes
you would cross an ocean to tenderly circumtrek.
This is the prodigal siren come ashore from her
home in the sea, to assuage all that want her for
her ways, for their own, for her tidal enchantment.
Joseph Gallo
June 18, 2009
post-time 7:28 PM
2 Comments:
Love this, Joseph!
Nadine
Ahh, thanks Nadine. She's a remarkable woman and this poem falls far short of embodying all she is. But that seldom prevents the poet from trying anyway. We're such masochists, you know. ;-)
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