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Life Beside the Sea
The fisherman, inside his house with too many windows, listens to the ocean in a conch shell given to him by a forgotten muse.
Outside these many windows, the muse is there among the people, occupying flickering flames in warm window sills, luring tired
shadows that time has distributed to the wrong owners. Survival is the best motivator, sweeping the skinny along the shore in
a pile of bad smell and doll-like eyes.
A dragonfly crawls inside a window, directing a million eyes like opposing wind. Just ride, having come
from stiff stalks and abandoned caravans with wandering circus freaks lighting bonfires.
It comes, it stays, and it dries, becoming neat, collecting dust left in yesterdays.
Many dreams are traveled between muses inside one particular window, riding yellow kitchen squares of light.
The fisherman sees only othersā?T dreams, while everyone else sees only their own. The people have come to
reclaim their sleeping shadows but find only dreams scattered throughout the dust collected.
The fisherman, crowded with dreams, finds the fly, hooks it, and steps outside. He has read somewhere
of fly fishing. Perhaps he could catch a dream, a dragon.
Something.
The ocean has dried and in its place is a desert. Drop jaw wishing wells among the young and poor,
the old and the rich, amazed at the hairy fisherman. They jump at his hand bobbing in the air, treasure
on a string, Mankindā?Ts trash between teasing small fingers.
The fisherman sees farther.
Below sight,
they are shrinking.
Up there, catching light are the iridescent wings. A rainbow, without rain. Sunrise is coming.
The happy man bobs his hand to the hungry orphans and shakes his head. One dream he yearns to feed his family of shadows.
He will build a ship. They will laugh at him. The rain will come. He dreamt it.
Shiloh Slaughter
Email: Shiloh Slaughter
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