Peter Boyle
Marine Companion All the saltwater you drank you regurgitated. It smelt of the bottom of the
sea where you had spent all that time. I could see in its grey consistency
the creature you had been for so long - your defences geared for the
solitary sifting of clouded ocean floors. Everything inside you was pain
and the water had a smell that let me know you were not about to relinquish
that. The rigidity of walking backwards sideways with one claw raised to let
you see what the centuries were bringing.I had to return you to the depths. Your being would froth and burn like
white acid without the weight of the universe to steady you. Or else, since
everything rests on everything else, I was frightened my own world would
surely sink like Atlantis without the counter-weight of your vigilant
stillness, watcher of the deeps.
Bio:
Peter Boyle has had three books of poetry published: Coming home from the world (1994), The Blue Cloud of Crying (1997) and What the painter saw in our faces (2002). His translations from French and Spanish poetry have also appeared in such magazines as American Poetry Review and Jubilat. Peter Boyle lives in Sydney, Australia.
