by Shea Foreman
Out to douse the pool lights.
Already I feel the moonburn I’ll wake with.
For moonburn,
the dried heads of sunflowers.
Rub. Waning, then waxing.
Little siskins fall out
and help to peck the
relax deeper.
Done right,
next time you’ll be a bear
of freshwater pearls.
You lumber, you growler,
scratch on the deck.
The whole of the duck migrationers
are in the pool.
They dip & dab for the strands
of notes falling off your pearl itch.
In webbed clef.
They can have a little more time.
As long as their quacks
don’t shine in anyone’s eyes.
And they put the waterwings back.
Since the Duck Stamp is coming.
And the nocturne the moon meows
comforts on her widow’s walk the marsh.
Shea Foreman is a motelier from Kitty Hawk, NC & author of The Big
(Killyhonk Press, 2016), a collection of marine pieces. In between duties
at the family business, he writes his poems & rides his bicycle & fashions
figures out of string.