A sea tree is meant
to drift away—
if you were anywhere near me
I’d know less what wading
shoulder-high feels like and more
of your skin’s
careless softness
taut to swoon me.
But this tidewrack so often
a nuisance at the mouths of rivers—
you keep twilight caught
between each trunk,
smooth from turning over,
exposed,
driven to decay with rounded edges, thus
this longer day
with you.
Driftwood, then, as a floating home,
gribbles, shipworms—
aren’t you nutrients, I think
to myself, aren’t you
just the smallest bit
in the food web.
And this is meant as a warning note—
the foundation of sand
dunes can give; it’s this quiet
that so often devastates, disappears us.
—
Alison Palmer is the author of The Offing (Broadstone Books, 2024), Bargaining with the Fall (Broadstone Books, 2023), Everything Is Normal Here (Broadstone Books, 2022) and The Need for Hiding (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). Her work has appeared widely in journals such as FIELD, Crazyhorse, The Cincinnati Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and Cimarron. Alison received a 2022 Independent Artist Award grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. Visit: www.alisonpalmer.org.
