I wade into the freezing water
with a gasp and four-letter exclamation.
Drawn to touch what I’ve found,
my hand reaches out
for that rough flare of magenta revealed
by a receding sea.
But do I really want to pick it up?
Pry it from its perch and turn
it over? Expose its vulnerability?
My mind tells me not to disturb,
yet my hands want to rub its knobby hide,
feel the flexibility of its arms,
test the heft of a celestial body
manifested in this sea creature.
Fixed tight against the pull
of outgoing tide, it clings naked
in a rocky tidal pool,
a sleeper whose watery blanket is rudely
snatched away. I watch as it begins to creep,
seek again a new level of sea
as I reconsider my desire and back away—
for hasn’t humankind been disruptive
enough without now disturbing stars?
—
Lynn DeTurk is a poet who lives in Central Coast California and Tors Cove, Newfoundland. Her work has appeared in the Cider Press Review, Mudfish, Poetry North Ireland, and the Lost Coast Review. A review was featured in the Prairie Schooner. Her first book of poetry, An Ode to Newfoundland, was published in 2019 by Cave Moon Press. A current manuscript examines climate change in Newfoundland. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts from Pacific University.
