Two Poems

First published in Verses Magazine, Issue One, 2019

Namesakes

My middle name is a ghost

half-forgotten, half-swallowed

like a salt water secret

My grandfather was lost at sea

when my mother was just sixteen

smoking in toilet stalls

She takes me to where he last stood,

pushed his boat off the barnacled dock

and was never seen

or heard from again

I look out across the calm water

and think of what that must

            have been like

to lose a father

                        to the ocean

I watch the horizon ripple, clouds

breach sunset like whales

I think of a poem I will spend

years not writing

always writing.

Sleeping Skeleton

I see foam teeth maul

volcanic black sands

Hear salt water chew

with mouth open wide

Churns whole coastlines

into silt and brine

Seaweed tangles round

my toes like morays

Rinse them limp

Watch as they thrash

Backwash gurgles bile

struggles with bellyache  

Hear it regurgitate the remains

of years at my feet

Somewhere far below a sleeping

skeleton shares my name