e.c. lewis

At first, I tried to keep you

shyly marshalled from where foam and sand mingled,
a gritty oobleck beneath unstable feet. Your jar is
one of repurpose: blueberry jam,
before scraps of red sewing thread,
before wild buttercups and sprigs of lavender.
Older jars allow the brine to metamorphose, a micro reliquary
to sit as a reminding of something greater than.
My mother told me to offer up my pain,
heart break, moments of joy to the salt
and all I would be asked in return is to see you
in breathless exaltation, the brutality of water against rock,
instructive in unrelenting fluidity.
Barnacles leave notes on the soles of my feet
and the palms of my hands.
I don’t know why I starved myself of you for so long,
waiting for the pull of the tide to release
an artificial andromeda, tenacious with excuses
of stars not being in their proper place
only to find that everything continued
as it was before and will renew again.