Waves and What Have You

by Steffi Drewes

picking up sand daddy dollars

    break to heft some 

beach green seaweed 

what ropes us feather-haired heroes

    here’s a brownish boa

here’s an angel’s ponytail

wind-clipped, we are brave rigging

    smells like boat sneeze

burly backwash 

this leafy rot had legs once fit 

    to ship     and swallow guppies

clammy nose starts to feel like fur 

gulping sea air,     hear a small shell scuttle

    bitten tongue, beginning with salt 

with what I had for water

distant cliffs to coincide with clasp

    dishing out echoes, caught mid-swan dive

we are ocean autogeography