Kissing the Shoreline GoodbyeA Poem by Kelley QuinnA SestinaThe sun peeks over
the clouds to look at the sea. This Tuesday morning,
I peer like the sun out of my window of glass, And finger the stem
of a flower. Too soon I’m pricked
and there is blood: I push the sides of
the skin together to create a pool, a frame: It reminds me of him
bleeding from the mouth and the face. The sand sinks soft
and warm as I stare into the sun’s face. My hand umbrellas my
eyes, for they’re looking at all they can see: The children are
playing, the waves are swooping like flowers Lain perfectly on the
grave, reflecting like glass All that has passed
and the blood Still
remains in the frame. Sometimes, the
children will scream, just like in the frame. I scream too because
I remember the face Of the dead and of
the gone, as the blood Floats on top of the
sea. At other times, I
stop and look at the waves of glass, Remembering the smell
of the flowers. He was the sun, the
moon, my daisy: a flower, But now frozen in
time, framed In something quite
solid and glass. So that when days
pass, I can still look at his face And always see Him without the black
pruned mouth of blood. A water droplet,
thick and clear, spreads like blood On my leg where, next
to me, a flower Of a child dries
herself off from swimming in the sea. She’s small and
chubby, with thick frames, And I look past her
eyes to stare at her face, Hoping to find
happiness behind those glasses. The sand, in
organized mounds, creates a castle of glass So fragile that its
beauty seeps like blood Down the walls of the
castle’s face. Someone has stuck a
flower On the top to
brighten the beautiful, to frame The solitude of a creation
so it can be seen. I
saw in the sea what made my thoughts clear as glass: Isolation frames the
forward life, no matter the spilled blood, And, when faith
flowers, the search begins for new faces. © 2014 Kelley Quinn |
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