life raft

mantra is I come to you
as the sun makes love

as the moon pocked n broke
turns the oceans over over

despite bad news – she gets up
every damn day – makes

amends with reefs
so bleached she sees

her bones as fish —
chalk coral – boats — metal teeth

blue green algae: the
brown shit bloom

again again she
holds her nose

her stomach
a giant sucking clam —

sharks, fin-less —
three men cracked the shell at midnight

mantra is — I am treading water
breathing in and out — I am writing you —

poems in n out of my gut
in wish n sparkling

mirrors… you say – I see your light, Liz
& it doesn’t blind you

it makes you love me
more more; more like Sylvia loved

the idea of gas — the idea, of death — I am
a woman of forty-three
and never more than the light
makes the ocean real

I come up for air — it smells so good
like you,

I do it so i feel like a man –
i do it so i reek of creating;

mantra is — survival
no thanks to God

human waste is
so disappointing

and I am
not rowing anywhere but

into your
body n mind n hands

clean me over over,
until I say

I’m home — and
read no bible

By Elisabeth Horan