Two Poems

Sea View

from the painting Good Neighbors by Laurence L. Schultz

If you painted me into your picture
of the house that reminds me of the sea—
green stucco, warm like gulf waters,
purple umbrella roof, front porch orange as coral,
alien as sponge and phosphorescent fish darting.
If I climbed the tangerine steps—
three to the porch—you would paint me there
in tropical hues.

A sea anemone—my indigo hair, a fan,
my undulating yellow arms,
my rippling red legs.
I empty all air from my lungs
and drift to the sandy bottom,
to the cool deep, to the heavy quiet,
to the painted dark. I settle into myself,
small and dense, still as anything in the sea.

 

Spring Flood

Dead fish litter the streets,
gutted, heads torn off,

dry scales glint silver.
She walks around the landmines

their bodies. The streets
have regurgitated themselves,

brown earth and rubble of asphalt.
Stop signs covered in burlap,

crosswalks rain-erased.
There are no safe places,

no avenue through this spring.