Galatea

Things your father gave you:
Eyesockets. The bones that frame
bottles full of the grey white ocean.
Black hair. Tangles like kelp.
The shape your foot forms in
the wet sand beside conch shells.

A sand dollar, a fish hook.

A memory like fog: cold salt,
wet hair on a man’s long legs,
white teeth in a black kelp beard.

A nightmare: a ship on the horizon
that never comes to harbor,
even during storms.

Especially during storms.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
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