by Mark McKain
This morning folds of orange light, the garden under construction.
A heat wave threatens. The Gulf Stream slowing.
Dislocated matts float into the Caribbean. Home to fish, turtles,
childhood memories. Sexual identity, nutrient availability,
dust from Africa. Wanted: herbivories to graze algae from the reef
able to scrape the toughest deposits. It won’t recover
without your teeth. Seaweed swirls, coquina clams burrow. Shush
of white noise only birds can penetrate. Water sings to the child,
running to the shelter of mother’s knee, a soft tree. Wake up worrying
I will have to flee—censorship-antisemitism-
feet high washing ashore. A teacher works overtime to erase “take a knee.”
Her job eliminated if she didn’t ban empathy.
Rows of brown-green rafts on the shore, covering turtle nests,
choking air passages with sulfur fumes—how I often feel,
out of place, like Braithwaite in New York, yearning for the “blue mist
from the ocean” the cotton tree in the school yard,
A heat wave threatens. The Gulf Stream slowing.
Dislocated matts float into the Caribbean. Home to fish, turtles,
childhood memories. Sexual identity, nutrient availability,
dust from Africa. Wanted: herbivories to graze algae from the reef
able to scrape the toughest deposits. It won’t recover
without your teeth. Seaweed swirls, coquina clams burrow. Shush
of white noise only birds can penetrate. Water sings to the child,
running to the shelter of mother’s knee, a soft tree. Wake up worrying
I will have to flee—censorship-antisemitism-
feet high washing ashore. A teacher works overtime to erase “take a knee.”
Her job eliminated if she didn’t ban empathy.
Rows of brown-green rafts on the shore, covering turtle nests,
choking air passages with sulfur fumes—how I often feel,
out of place, like Braithwaite in New York, yearning for the “blue mist
from the ocean” the cotton tree in the school yard,
the crack of sugarcane. The houses flood the trees aflame the bed shaking
like a theme-park ride throws me into the street.
On the curb with cracked cup. And you, sea, gulping water and sky.
The house groans, swims.
Mark McKain’s work has appeared in Agni, The New Republic, The Journal, Subtropics, Cimarron Review, Superstition Review, ISLE, and elsewhere. He has published two chapbooks: Blue Sun by Aldrich Press and Ranging the Moon by Pudding House Publications. He writes, teaches, and experiences global warming in St. Petersburg, Florida.
