Back to Archives - Elliot Richman

 

 

Sea Change by Elliot Richman

 

 

                 I

 

In such pleasurable anguish

so lost in lust

you become an aviary:

nightingale eyes melting

gull-like sighs in darkness,

peacock feathered thighs

lighter than a sparrow’s shadow,

your sex a thousand hummingbirds

dazzling my mouth.

 

 

 

                  II

 

You plunge naked
into a star filled sea
that is too cold for me
to enter. Even
the stars make way

for you.

 

 

 

                   III

 

When we make love in moonlight,

I become a brush

painting a mountain seascape inside you.

 

 

 

                IV

 

How I envy the ease of  fishes

as we wade into a sea spewing

eggs and sperm

into the turbid ebb and flow and

you tell me you are not sure

you love me anymore

as evening flings

seabirds above us

and the moon heaves

a final thrust of frigid

water against my scrotum.   

 

 

 

            V

 

Rain pocks the sand.

You look utterly lovely,

even more so

because I know

you are unfaithful.

 

 

 

           VI

 

Your voice will disappear

into the frenzy of sharks

devouring doomed men;

and luminescent plankton

the color of your eyes

will stare upwards at me

with a lust you never had

as I scan the horizon

for your lips

now silent as the bones

of the dead in the womb

of the Arizona. 

 

 

 

           VII

 

I shall forget you presently, my dear.

The hushed surf on another’s lips.

Coral fish, the color of sunrise

shall replace your albatross eyes

and lands beyond the seven seas

will satiate me with mystery.

 

Now, your heart hears a distant beat to quarters

because you scuttled the symphony that bound us

in pursuit of a phantom ship, its bells

ringing through night and fog on uncharted waters.

 

 

 

                 VIII

 

Alone, I enter you with the softness

of snow geese reflections

upon a placid sea,

our love now in irons.

 

Sea birds do not cherish

their reflection upon the water,

so why do I cling to your image

like a lost sailor upon the last spar?

 

 

 

            IX

 

Now I am caressed by the shadows

of night herons.

They are your bare breasts

against my chest.

Nature only gives. It asks for nothing

but death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2005-2010 Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas