Fran Davis
What You Wanted, What You GaveTo Mary Lou
You wanted the sea
and it took you
as it accepts all our offerings
They told us
the ash spreaders
that those with good karma turn the water teal
I imagine your phosphorescence
kindling the darkness, transformed
light catchers, light keepersI keep your company at the beach
grains of you swimming in the surf
Leaves of fog tissue the sun
thin to a quicksilver dollar
that falls into the sea brilliant pool
here sudden like a splash of joy
like legerdemain
water like laughter, then gone again
I glimpse you in the leaping light
a teasing greetingAt the tide line bees are drowning
sipping at flowers of foam
mistaking salt for honey
They too get a final taste of you
in bubbles that froth against their chitin sides
Observing them I almost miss the jellyfish
flung down on the sand
domed and strange, dark rimmed
like a shield abandoned by a warrior
whorled hub blue-white as ice
running sand
slick-sliding down convex slopes and folds
I watch a wave slip fingers underneath to pluck it back
then thrust it forwardI think you've put it here
shoved it through the clean breaking tide
this lovely floating island
and left it running with your grit
a reminder
whole is beautiful though fleeting as the tides
and earth is needed for the weight of burial
Bio:
Fran Davis's stories, essays and poems have appeared in Calyx, The Chattahoochee Review, The Vincent Brothers Review, Reed Magazine, Passager, Quercus Review and several anthologies. She is a winner of the Lamar York prize for nonfiction and a Pushcart prize nominee.
