A new poem by Michaela Keeble.

 

Only the ocean

 

only the ocean

turns me over

like this

 

only the ocean

turns me

on like this

 

only the ocean

gives warning:

 

what will change

and when

 

so it doesn’t come

across

like violence

 

white caps

drift in

on the rising tide

 

i feel like

opening my legs

 

i don’t want

to do anything else

today

 

i don’t want

to go

to work

 

i want to lie down

with the ocean

for 24 hours

 

one whole turn

of the earth

 

by then

i’ll have been

filled

 

and emptied

 

by the fizzing surf

by the ocean’s

foaming hand

 

by the ocean

washing in

and out

 

over

and over

 

coming

and going

 

and coming

 

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This poem appears in Michaela Keeble’s chapbook intertidal, published by Anemone Press in July 2020.