"Born Of A Storm In The Wee Small Hours Of The Moon" by Dee Rimbaud
Olivia V. Ambrogio
Beachcombingeach shell I see I see you in,
you
in the hiplike hinge of clam, you in the swell
and globe of snail-shell, pink and beige
and whorled wide enough to fill
the cupped breadth of my palm;
the black hair
of the mussel is your hair,
the tender, rose-flushed mouths
of whelks are fitted
with your lipsthrough winter’s early sunsets
I have walked the empty beaches, evenings,
watching the waves stroke sand
to a glistening skin and the dying colors run
trembling over the shore;
I have placed the conch
against my ear and heard, I knew,
such murmuringsbut far from sea the liquid
shiver of their spirals turns to bone
and late at night, raked
by the scratch of sand, were I to press
the conch again to ear
the only sound poured forth would be
the starved demanding of the waves,
harsh as the howls of wind that scours
the earth for what it’s lost; were I to dream
with it still in my grip
I’d taste your skin like salt, each touch
a sting
The Ship in the Bottle
You saw it somewhere:
inside a swell of glass,
the delicate toothpick boards,
tiny sails like canvas handkerchiefs
floating on nothing
suspendedyou bought it,
because you couldn't figure out
how they got it in there
in the first placeafter a while peering in
you found yourself filling the bottle
with water
just to see if you could get the ship
to moveyou left it somewhere,
rocking precariously on a shelf,
for months at a time
even though it kept catching your eye;
in that time you began imagining
people in it
even yourselfand in lonely moments
on evenings after
you roll it musingly for hours
you try pouring water back and forth through the bottleneck
hoping that, somehow
finally
it, too, will come spilling out
Bio:
Olivia V. Ambrogio is currently pursuing a PhD in biology at Tufts University, studying marine invertebrate ecology. Her work has been published in Red Cedar Review, The Herbal Network, Yemassee, Onionhead, Controlled Burn, Fugue, Yuan Yang, and Abandon Automobile: An Anthology of Detroit Poets (Wayne State University Press).
