Drowning
drowning is overrated.
slipping in waist-deep ink
on a page, sad refrains grinding
bones to white crystal sands
bobbing a moment, surfacing
then sliding under
tugged by the fast current
to lose myself in a poem.
what could be more simple?
the brine taste of scallops
scoured words from my tongue
and left no more scar than
our last meal together
when you ordered the seafood penne
with white wine, and I, smiling
wrapped linguini around fork tines
until the end was indistinguishable.
you wore your heart close to your chest
and I felt your salt breath, swelling
along my ear’s crescent bay
then a wet silence drowned out all hope
filling my lungs up, liquid, amniotic
and I choked on my pride:
coughing up a plague of toads in vain.
you would not kiss them.
~ Rob K. Omura
Robert K. Omura lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he practices law. He is active in education, law reform, the environment and the outdoors. His fiction and poetry appears or is forthcoming in literary journals, ezines and anthologies, including the Raving Dove, the Rose & Thorn, and Paradigm, and he read his poetry, from the anthology Writing the Land: Alberta through its Poets, on CBC Radio for National Poetry Month in 2008. He is currently working on a novel, but that’s slow going at best.
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