scene at sea
by Nida Mubaraki
a lightbulb forty feet up waves hello from the southern tide,
little hiccups in the waves
dancing at our knobby knees.
we woke up 200 miles north from last year’s dream
in a farewell letter to the silver dollar espresso –
traded in your boiler pot for a slow & grating stove, simmering
soft your protruding ribs inside-out.
newport’s sun-cloud glaze and my sworded fingers,
wrapped up in sheets and echoes of yesterday. what happened to the
smell of the morning blackberries? too early picked
and i don’t know what home is anymore. is it true
you left her here to die?
coffin in the kitchenette, sitting like a
four o’clock scone. back there you’re all buttery and bone-thin
in some alienatic way;
dirtied hands and two-knot hair that you left in the city,
all out of your reddish plates you fed to a lazy-eyed tomb.
you were wound-up in the days of yesterday
before the interstate drive down up (please don’t go back down).
education born in new england, the only place
we can read with the fisherman’s daughters. learn where comfort resides:
they’re not short-knived in the boroughs.
stay here with me is what i’d say if this was about us:
linger where the ocean is the broth at supper,
savory & seasonal is our mainland diet.
no energy drinks except for the accidental saltwater sips,
breaking bread with crab legs and lemon instead.
august can be eternal now, if you keep holding my hand –
do we abandon our souls if we leave here?
down south we don’t work. just let us nod off
in crisp winter with nothing
but the woods, the fire, and us.
waves shouting at you: the tide will welcome you now. no more nostalgia, no more
dreams, no more wonder;
certainty is in the cusp of your palm & is thumbing your lip, healing the years
of bites. north is no north but it’s evergreened home,
the city gives you nothing but day-old bread and a lack of remorse.
Nida Mubaraki is a New Jersey and Philadelphia based writer. She has work in/forthcoming in Maudlin House, Bullshit Lit, and Eunoia Review, amongst others. She works as the senior editor, Twitter head, and a contributor for The Empty Inkwell Review. Email her at nidamubaraki@gmail.com or find her on Twitter: @pennedbynida.
