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Image: Blaise Freeman
what was it this
morning : you said
redgrass glistens
in surf : the pine
board fence collapsed
along the line : after
the storm a kestrel
in headwind : sand
accumulates on your
feet : puckered seal
skin : the salt-washed
flesh : wreckage towing
upshore : when the
gulls came out I saw
them circling in air :
saw them pecking
seals’ eyes from
torn skin : a boy
downstrand rolling
in dunes : I could see
the stomach’s red
wall : the small hairs
on its flippers : blubber
wretched by shark
bite from the belly’s
swell : later seen
from a dune : black
water : fish spit
pooling : mouth open
enough to see teeth
trailing in sand : his lips
limp : there in
the storm’s wake
I wanted something
to say : the ocean
scraped his insides clean
John James is the author of Chthonic, winner of the 2014 CutBank Chapbook Award. His poems appear in Kenyon Review, Poetry Northwest, West Branch, Best American Poetry 2017, and elsewhere. He teaches at Trinity Washington University and the University of the District of Columbia, and directs Georgetown Summer Programs’ Creative Writing Institute.
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