Tina Cane

    nebula     Jupiter     a dozen dead cannons plus a silhouette on an opposite inlet of Maeve steeped in fog and her own thoughts branch in hand a beacon in a wool vest     soft-edged she stands over an ocean blank of fish     […]

                        was a sunlit swig of open mouth taste of apricot rain and tongue in the back- yard at the house in Carthage     a boy in red pants and silvertone chain from his navel came tumble-dried flames […]

    Maeve knows two types: Stockless & Classic as in the tattoo with stock shank arm and fluke     an anchor is a tool     an anchor of stones works too     boots are anchors as are legs and trees and rocks and chins and tongues […]

    if not summer camp then Cape Something where sunshine hid in sand till eventide exposed its streaks between Maeve’s fingers on the phosphorescent dune those distant afternoons the beach studded with men young and free from curves or moon pull     the shifts that dimmed the vital […]

    the walls are aqueous tonight half-light a brew of medusa shadows     hours mulling the story once read of a girl who wakes after six months of rain and deserts her island home     again Maeve sees her marching on the clay road of mangroves past […]

    mostly water Maeve contains also the tingling urge to swim eyes nose mouth ears     smeared as anemones across salt-lick skin     a school of legs arms of paillettes as a kid she floated on her back in the local pool     lids pressed shut […]

I. I’ve been meaning to tell you that the skin around her eyes was thin with blue veins fanning out like ferns     that she was pale for a Puerto Rican and that she spit and threw change at my feet as I waited to cross the street to tell you […]