Washington Harbor

Lies inland,
like Prometheus’ water-colored liver
dripping endearments, this daemon
full of salts, this frieze of abalone.
 
   Spit of land
where Frank lived, hated to death by relatives,
in the duck shack. Promontory where
a shelf drops off into frigid water,
the trout you caught as a kid takes the bait,
runs out the line again until it breaks.
 
           As we separate
from one another, so salt water
waits upon the moon. As we live several
lives within a single lifetime, the fetus
embodies reptile, avian, human.
 
                   The big house
sits high above, cliffside. Below,
burial grounds where a ring of shells
make bold the gulls who fling their oysters
on the rocks to break out yellow flesh.
 
Inland sea,
shallow lake, pond where herons open
like kites and fly toward the cliffs. Enclosed
not with coral, but twin culverts housed
beneath a road of sand.
 
   Don’t pretend
you can leave this lagoon—lacuna—
that you never wanted to lie down and feel sun
warm your legs young again, back propped
against half-whitened logs of driftwood
carried in during the last storm and left for dead.  
 
       Lagoon of longing,
where the pull of full moon plunged your belly
into cramps over what would not be born
or miscarried. Near Protection Island,
peacocks displayed mating rituals
for a twenty-something man and woman.
 
               Lagoon sans dunes,
here sand’s pebbled with star-colored stones.
Age tightens the circle—high tide bound to low.
Age favors—no, flatters—youth’s warped memory.
Narcissus walked here, hurt these fragile plants,
too young to love anyone but himself.  









Judith Skillman is the author of twelve collections of poetry, most recently The Never (Dream Horse Press 2010). She is the recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets, Washington State Arts Commission, and other organizations. Her work has appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, The Midwest  Quarterly, and many other venues. Skillman holds an M.A. in English Literature from University of Maryland and lives in Kennydale, Washington. For more on her work, please visit www.judithskillman.com.