The Rebellious Dwell in a Dry Land
Sarah Sarai

Stride to the shore of the sine wavy sea. Survey
the aquatic expanse. It’s all wet. Hah! Swivel.
It’s behind you now, water lapping, slapping.

Stretch wide your sinewy arms, brown, yellow,
red, white. You’re a god, indigenous. Crouch.
Steel thighs ease you to the sand. Foam sizzles

cobalt, cresting. Fling the cape of cold fear off
your shoulders. Forsake the ocean voyage dragged
from its sandy bed. Don’t look back at soiled sheets.

All the millennia you’ve gathered whistling dunes,
echoing rooms, pursuers, accusers, golden wings to
lift you to dawn will sneer, I don’t love you any

more and laugh. When you couldn’t sleep, wept
like walls, spilled ashes on your breast, the night
Pop died, friends betrayed, times thoughts rattled

now the strewn debris of your life. Footprints lead
this way; that. Follow. Flotsam and a weathered
hull in your wake, high ground ennobles your life.


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