PDF

Sea by the Day


by Darryl Price


It seems appropriate, doesn't 
it though? In she went. Through that particular 
moon shaped door. Forests present 
the same eye puzzle. It's there 

if you look hard enough with something 
more than eyes. The ragged enchantment, 
the vision like a magnet. 
I'm not sure we shouldn't follow. 

I'm not sure we shouldn't choose that 
crimson sail over others less 
mysterious. I'm not sure any 
of its cliffs mattered. She walked, 

wading into dizzying heights 
that turned into unimaginable 
depths. I'm looking at it 
and I get it in my soul. It 

doesn't need words. Perhaps that was 
her main incentive. I feel glued 
down in a postcard, used like a 
stamp. Like a drunken mandolin

playing ever so sadly for 
only a moment. Like a smile 
looking for a little cold sparrow 
eating a brown French fry. I 

guess I know that's dumb. I don't care. 
She didn't care for any more 
dumb things getting in the way of 
really feeling something without 

an overplayed name attached to 
its chest, at least on her own tongue. 
The taste was not bitter so much 
as bland as a tofu sky. It 

still seems understandable that 
she might dance her way into oblivion 
rather than face another
day of windy beaches,

full of kites like origami 
gulls, upside down gravities, while 
she fights back the tears. She wouldn't
turn away from the night's wailing.
Endcap