Poem: Boulders At Beach

This poem was originally published in Blueline, a lit journal out of SUNY Potsdam.


-----------------------



Boulders at Beach

shattered crab bones
litter scoured slabs,
smashed by seagulls
that slurped their piths;

but life thrives
in slimy gouges
where larvae jerk,
shimmying S’s

near flies that walk water,
dogfighting in blinks--
then once again
strutting the miracle.

down where drunk ocean
hammers the cliffs,
you have to marvel
at bruised seaweed
parrying like tridents.

barnacles own
the plateau here,
glommed into scabrous mats.
their sharp hatches tear denim,
defend a glut
of small-minded doors--

hungers that sit on each other,
lean against fences of mussels,
blue-black pikemen
knotted into clumps
within cracks.

you have to marvel
at the strength
of the rock-life’s mediocrity--
its all-powerful urges,
its stoic cramming,
the hardbitten, paralyzed
rage.


------------------------------------------