Static
for E
Always so close to the sea.
We know the myth of the susurrus ocean
is just that, have watched the water rush
like a river through the streets that house us, kiss
our top steps and retreat before it breached
our thresholds—tonight, in the light of candles,
your daughter’s breath sighs through the radio
on the table, and you tell me about the four dead women
found rotting in a ditch up the road, behind the Starlight
Motel, fully clothed. Barefoot. Heads turned east. All
mothers, all hookers, shot up with drugs. Is it a sin
of omission to try not to see the chipped pink paint
on their exposed toes? A sin to paint
the dead in colors bearing no real blood to truth?
I pour myself more wine to keep the dead out, fail:
the man plucks shredded kitten heels
from still warm feet, cracked with walking, sighs
with mad relief. It is accomplished. Success.
His life is a quest, theirs a trap door—your daughter’s
whinny drowns in the stuff of cold stars. The candle flickers
on your beautiful face as outside, a mermaid slithers
from the muck of a dead low tide, licks the tip of your steps
with her forked tongue, and, this time, turns away.