what’s bottled breaks
BY TANYA GRAE
Not at first
like the letter that doesn’t come, but the one that does
& makes no sound as it holds the room.
This morning, rain
arrives on the sill & words rise to mind & fall like swells
on the piano & never cease to surprise,
at least in Florida
with riptides & surrender. The Sunshine State.
Between beaches,
just two days ago, I considered the world mapped.
Today the roads are rearranged & the cities mislabeled—
maybe the state is broken,
or my own is, or yours—
birds losing direction & sense, unbecoming
themselves in pulled feathers & song. Even the resident
mockingbird cleans her wings, shrugs.
What magnetism
drives this? Maybe the new moon is fornicating the sun,
& we’ll have hurricanes in winter.
What sound would that make?
Does whispering in your ear bring a rise? I have imagined
falling in love again, something I no longer thought possible,
but in this crescendo unresolved,
you appear again & again.
What are the odds? I read a story yesterday of a West Coast boy
finding a message in a bottle
after decades at sea.