Sonnet for Poseidon
This ocean belongs to you
like I belong to you. You hold
these waves my hair stringy
seaweed caught in your brazen horses
my heart filled with water
until you swallow me give me
life when you throw me onto land
away from coral where I am held
—Let me go.
let my gills grow over strange scars
on my clavicle let me shed
my fins molted exoskeleton
let me regurgitate seawater blood not brine
let me forget— let me forget.
Sonnet for Triton
I am lost in this desert
cannot find my way home
through these dunes valleys
The sky is the wrong shade of blue
clouds not the color of waves
air too dry for these lungs
Please— pretend I am an Argonaut
Blow your conch-shell trumpet open
this topsoil let the water seep
through Lead me
to the lake to the river to the sea
and I will ride your dolphin tail
faster than trout we swim upstream
lay eggs on the bed of this ocean
