Martha Silano

Despite knowing the sun will implode,

I gussied up, met you between the legs of a coconut crab.
Where were we, Amuri? What were we eating,
consomme of carpe diem? I think you were

my Turtle Back Zoo, like the day I caught an eel
in the Raritan River. Despite my small
confusion that most of the cosmos

is nothing, that it will self-destruct in three billion years,
I took you up on a visit to Dublin to meet the man
who’d written mistakes are the portals

of discovery. Mornings I’d leave you in bed to stroll
along the sea like the wide-open mouth of our future.
A sea we were willing to drink

so we could swim with the elusive barracuda, past foregone castles
we navigated in flip flops, sans sunscreen, sans map.
And we navigated nightfall,

scraped the spent wax from glass votives, searched the closets
for candles, a scent called Mine Were Peasants,
Yours Were Royals.

I don’t think I burn anymore, or, if I do, it’s a headlamp
that keeps going out no matter how many times
we fiddle with the batteries.

It would be easy to say only smolder which I guess is true,
my hands stinking of the Butane my father dribbled
on briquettes before throwing in a match,

that my brain’s always a spark away from igniting, an untended
fire forged from dry Ponderosa. I’m always reminding my son
to never turn his back, but who am I talking to, really?

I gussied up, greeted you like a garden spider
with an X-shaped web, the exact function
of which is unknown.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Martha Silano is the author of five books of poetry, including Gravity Assist, Reckless Lovely, and The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, all from Saturnalia Books. She is also co-author of The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice (Two Sylvias Press). Martha’s poems have appeared in Paris Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and in the Best American Poetry series, among others. Honors include North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and The Cincinnati Review’s Robert and Adele Schiff Award in Poetry. She teaches at Bellevue College, near her home in Seattle, WA. Learn more about Martha and her work at marthasilano.net.