Christine Barkley

Requiem Sharks

Requiem for the teeth I never cut
quite right, never quickly enough.
For a time when I wasn’t worried
about bite force, about sharpness.
For rolling over,
and over, and over
for him. For curling away
from the light, curling into myself,
sinking below. For a lack of fight
bites, for fists flush with the only
skin left untouched. For my slack
jaw, soft mouth, dull tongue.
Take these words
as more than token or remembrance;
take my grief as promise.
On this shipwreck rising, this seabed
reckoning. Under oath this animal
I am: once shy, twice teething,
sandpaper-sharp and thrashing.
I would swim unblinking for days.
I would cross the whole ocean.
Take my promise as romance:
I would do anything for him.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do to him.

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Christine Barkley is a writer based in the Pacific Northwest. Her poems and personal essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Manhattan Review, Grain, The Journal, Rust and Moth, Massachusetts Review, Salamander, The Indianapolis Review and The Pinch, among others. She is a poetry reader for TriQuarterly and The Maine Review.