Lonely Rocks by Tabor Skreslet
26 lines
Issue 6 (Fall 2024)
I go to the rocks, she says,
The rocks that break all boats
My restless gaze darts away
Heart shrivels, clenches, shudders
The lonely rocks, I ask
My scalp prickles at her baldness
Young and metastatic, she decays
Not lonely, not at all,
She says as her fevered eyes glitter
Though sailing for the same horizon, mine
Lies distant—vaguely viewed—a coast outlined
In shadow, dripping red at sunset
She confronts
It now: her vessel dragged by sudden tides
Splintered on the rocks that break
All boats, some sooner
I hear the others, she says,
They sing in gaps and crevasses
Mouths of stone open
Calling—let me go
I clasp her hand until the end
Until the tide whispers out
I know to listen for her
When the song comes for me
A boat lost—and found—in
Rock spray, our common salt