The gulls are circling now

When I faced the ocean I did not know how to cross it.

Madeline Ndambakuwa

-

The ocean that separates us is silent and still–68 years between your birth and

mine, grandmother whale,

grandmother tide

Your chest rises and falls with such

effort,

expanse of stillness in between,

the tide of your breath eerie and low

-

I tell you I saw low tide, once,

went for the sunrise and did not expect the beach

naked and so vast it might have been a salt flat

the water so far out it took a long time to reach it

How strange,

the ocean out of place,

walking on the seafloor with no gills and no mask

-

The gulls are circling now

the sky is tinted yellow

-

The still beach of your chest frightens me, too,

beached-whale body,

sunning bones

The rocks I cross slice my soft feet and

when I reach you I’m not sure how to touch you,

hair like seaweed

skin like salt

I wait for the cough-crested current of your murmur

to bring messages

but it does not

Your breath unspools like a tidal pool

-

Two weeks from now you will come back to life

I will go home to re-meet you, lucid and spry

I will weep with rage and won't say why

But you will press the shell of your lips to my ear and tell me the tide,

now, is right

-

The gulls are circling now, you’ll say.

The sky is tinted yellow.