Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

An attachment to pearls

All the right words are stored just east of access.
The right words are tucked inside a clamcage,
the right words are still and halted and shallow.
The wrong ones are still halted, still shallow,
still easier to scoop them up in cupped hands,
to eat them out of carapaces and sell them at shoreside.
I look at the men and I feel like a pearl.
I have a tidal draw to Venus, an attachment to pearls,
I don’t care for oceans, I’m indifferent to oysters.
Women are true marine,
I see them real, they drink my water.
The right words are theirs.
I consider mine. God forbid.

I know what happens, I know what I do.
I lodge too much and too shattered inside.
I spread in sparkling shards, wrangled, too tangled,
until I tug out the pieces like seaglass from sand again.
I sell the shells, I try, I hold out my hands
and warm water trickles through my laced fingers,
high leaks toward my sore supply.

Yes, I see what happens,
I see my lungs, I see my heaving,
I see my stockstill shock at the sight of the drowning.
What gives? I’m giving up the girls,
the women, whatever they are, I’m waving toward men,
I’m swallowing them up, I’m sinking my feet in their sand.
I’m sending the anchor down as cupped hands,
the anchor flailing, the anchored failure,
a ship moored on the shore of scared little boys.
Can’t drown in the shallow end. Can’t drown dry.
Can’t get tangled ropeless, sink weightless,
the cord snapped, the anchor lost to the ocean,
a newborn for the seafloor, congratulations, it’s a boy.

Harley Shiner is a writer from Massachusetts. He is a recent Bridgewater State University graduate and will soon be attending Bowling Green State University in pursuit of an MFA in fiction. His poetry has previously appeared in The Bridge.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx