2 poems

by Pamela Nocerino

clam diggers

Hidden muscles fold and bend

like accordions 

to dig in mourning sand.

Dawn reveals stretched, wide belly creases

in briefly upright shore hunters

who decide what to keep and 

what to release - 

a bewitching sort

to witness - 

alike, in its way,

to memories 

locked tight and left buried

without heat 

to open and consume,

like mussels,

for tomorrow's bending. 

the hush

hush

hush

of rhythmic waves

uncover and bury

the shells of the lives I imagined

& the life I carry - 

the space between as vast and blurry

as the crepuscular horizon. 

Wet lines of tide mark

what was and what will be again. 

My faltering steps, 

a moment at best, 

fill with sea and retreat 

as I embrace the light dullness 

of essential insignificance. 

Pamela Nocerino is a ghostwriter and teacher who once helped build a giant troll in the Rocky Mountains. She enjoyed a brief career on stage in Denver until she needed health insurance. Then, she taught public school students for over 20 years while raising her sons. Two of her short plays were selected for staged readings, and she has poetry with Gyroscope Review, Plum Tree Tavern, Splintered Disorder Press, Third Estate Art's Quaranzine, Writing in a Woman's Voice, and Capsule Stories. Most recently, Pamela has a short story in Jerry Jazz Musician and a poem in the upcoming March issue of Minnow Literary Magazine.