This piece holds a special place in my heart. Not because it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, but because it was my first published poem.
Six years and dozens of rejection letters prior to the publication of “Prey” in Pest Control Magazine (RIP), my alarm clock rings. I silence it. Tumble out of bed. As I stumble down the hall to use the toilet, this line comes to me—a half-remembered dream?—“We scuffle towards the sun / without wondering why.”
I scribble it onto the back of an envelope for a delinquent bill and get ready for my day.
Weeks pass. Months. Every morning starts the same. Wake up and go to work. Every morning starts the same. Wake up and run. Every morning starts the same. Wake up and walk the dog. Every morning starts the same.
One morning I discover the envelope with the two lines I had written down and I start to dream. Why do we rise every morning and do the things we do? These days, every morning starts the same. Wake up and make coffee. Sit in front of a blank page until it’s time to get ready for work.
Every morning starts the same. Someone reads the funny pages over bacon and eggs. Every morning starts the same. Someone else turns on CNN. Every morning starts the same. Another someone steps outside and walks barefoot through dew-damp grass. Every morning starts the same.
One morning I think about leatherback turtles. I think how a small percentage of baby leatherbacks hatch from their shells and immediately know (how do they know) that they need to swim. Many never make it to the water. Many are eaten by other sea creatures. Few grow to adulthood. We are animals, too, lucky and unlucky among us. We all run to the rising sun…without wondering why.
Prey
Mother buries us at dusk
while dark eyes watch from the woods.
We sleep soundly in sand
as the stinking sea rolls
and stutters and cracks,
black and blue beneath the moon,
until rough claws clutch our nook,
and a snarling snout, knifemouthed,
selfishly stabs my sisters,
dribbling down puddles of pink.
Huddled hard against crushing clay,
only we few remain,
saved by a skulking wave.
.
.
.
Fetid flames bake us for days
as swooping beasts howl and shriek.
Dry dreams and whispered winds
sift silt to soft powder,
twisting and shifting
and razing our hoary roof.
Then, propelled from long slumber
by a tickle of flippers,
trickling under falling stars,
we surge together swiftly.
And we race for the floating flame:
scuffling for the surf
without wondering why.April is National Poetry Month! I aim to post a poem each weekday in celebration of the form. Some old, some new, some published, some never-before-seen.
So great Josh!