Patience of egrets a poem by Peach Delphine

This shore of conch and mangrove,

Rain, our mother tongue,

Cast down as glyphs beaten into sand,

It requires the patience of egrets

The long glide of pelicans

To endure the loss of your hands

Weight of your body in the warm night

As clock light breathes against the ceiling

 

This weather of absence, so much moonlight

Contained by scars, delicate

Tracery of struggle, cartography of dreams, your words still summon to this shore,

Congregation of spoonbills gathered for tide

 

The shyness of alligators,

The call and response of owls,

A world not yet fallen into shadow

The plumage of night folds into palms,

It requires the roots of mangrove

To weather these waves, long fetch

Of sleepless absence,

Each day a shell curving upon itself

The sound of emptiness 

Coiled within my ear, the sand of loss

Pouring from my hands

 

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Bio: Peach Delphine is a queer poet from Tampa, Florida. Infatuated with what remains of the undeveloped Gulf coast.