“Brine-Blue” by Salem Loucks

i.

pulled a fish out of my chest

salted brine-blue scaled

and dangling tail

broke my ribs, emptied the rest

out came pouring seawater spines

dredged muskgrass and tangled kelp lines

left foam and silt and suds crusted ‘cross

my stomach seabed

finally the waves crash a’coast

linoleum, piano, cushion, remote, heavy outside

now.

ii.

so much lighter without my seawater

in this sun

a picnic against a clear window

cold world reaching up, in cliffs

fjords of wind, I could walk in

I could drift, take flight

soar and

fall and

twirl

bright black kite

a streak through clouds

and prism knives

iii.

I thought I’d carry ocean to the earth underneath

only let it spill

when my walls of skins

rotted enough for the fins to surf

dead grave-dirt

instead I

pulled this fish out of my throat

thorax thrashed against gills

to drain my lungs

from maritime guilts.

drag my fingers ‘gainst the bottom

dredging silt and sediments

black the color of the bottom of the basins

leaking from my nails to fingertips

suck on black

but it doesn’t taste like tears anymore

the salt’s less the wound of what i lack

more sediment

than equatorial current.

gone is the

reaching grasping foam up my tongue

rising tide to my teeth.

No. no more

all that’s left is soft sand,

found in ponds and black-

rock beaches.

iv.

and all the oceans

that fell to the floor?

I don’t worry about flood.

Someday,

the fish in my hands, cradled, cupped,

will look back at me up

from the clouds

–an eye in the sunset,

lavender and dandelion reaching over

brine-blue.

v.

I think this was

I know this was long

long overdue.

Art is movement so Salem Loucks has always made art to stay moving and changing. They like putting pretty rocks in their pockets, writing poetry in stairwells, and playing bass in burning basements. Somehow, their best work is always done in transit.