POEM TITLE
a week in blackness on sea
POEM
after a week
she convinced him
to leave blackness on sea
on the coast to rot—
an abandoned oyster left in summer
to the ants and the crows.
a London garden needs tending—
a marriage needs mending.
his new life was rhythmic and fast-lived and new
and his old wife was an old wife…but
when he tried to make it up to her
and bought her a rose
it smelled of The Lobster Pot
to him.
of freedom,
of sin.
it sounded like music,
it tasted like gin.
it felt like that person he’d held through the night
who had whispered “don’t go”
when he left for his flight.
it lived bright and beautiful, a week on display
then it died in a vase
and got thrown away.
but somewhere, oh somewhere, ringed in half-shells and rope
in a restaurant, by the ocean
lived on the man's hope.