LOW TIDE- A Poem by Brigitte Poirson

Wave by wave,

The retreating streaks of swooshing mud

Have licked the light off the shore.

Love by love,

The forceps of time

Have given birth to turbid silence.

Second by second,

The sphincters of the lunar sphere

Have sucked the earth dry.

Rank by rank,

The shoals of fishy hopes

Have sunk, stuck in muck.

In the middle of everywhere,

Past God,

You shuffle words through the mushy mire

Of this swamp.

Low tide.

No hide.

The future is foreclosed

On the foreshore.

Yet,

Within the muffled, stiffening stillness of the dusk,

Through the mucous pus,

The vicious, viscous slush,

Slowly,

In the subliminal struggle of the flush

Against the mush,

A lush gush

Gains attraction.

The slime simmers

In a distant shimmer,

A frail shiver

Foreboding a new flood

That will surge, submerge  

And merge silt and sea.

It sure will cleanse shell, shore and soul

For a whole half-night

Of fleeting fluidity…