Beneath the surface of a pool reside

Something nostalgic like the swish of a fin,

Waves like a drumroll, longing symphony of tide.

A secret not well-kept in the anemones do hide;

gulls scan meekly for the promise of life

to find a pool half full of creatures alive,

the other half dead, though in their living they tried.

Even the strongest of wings can be derailed by the knife;

Fish stall at the surface, the hearts of gulls untied.

Land and sea seem to know it; in unison they sighed.

Fish swish their fins neatly like a wrong angle could kill.

I wonder if they abide by the rules, and if they do still.

And yet the anemones sway, and I always wonder why,

The docility of dance seems so futile in the sky.

Sometimes I wonder if they’ll ever find their way out,

But wanting is a different measure, and every decision is doubt.

When the moon rises East, the waters do shift,

A dance between two minds, the latter of which only half exists.

When the waves roll by, violins start to play,

That macabre melody that only terrifies in the day—

The sounds conflate and burst in my head,

Secrets bleed out to sea, sonata of deep blue and red.

How out of place, how strange to be,

The unknown nothing of stagnancy, dead fish in the sea.

To blink at the sun, far beneath drifts of tide,

A current led nowhere; stench of something long died.

To leave, to come back, is it all a cyclical theft?

How much more can I borrow, until there is none left?

And what have I left, in this utopic rhythm I forever strum?

What more can be said about melodic tides,

The inconsistency of song come undone?

What more to say about a broom, swept away, but not unwanted?

The gulls don’t understand, they say my waters are haunted.

How else could they explain this weeping, this clinging onto something long past?

I’ll soon be lost again, in that deep blue something; the endless vast.

It’s leaving, the weeping, the surge sweeps through too fast.

I start to wonder if a passersby would wave,

its final crash solaced by the smile of a friend—

And how do I know when the tide will rise, the final end?