After Robert Dash’s Photograph Into The Mystic
 

They say

When those that love the sea die

They rush out across the blue toward the horizon

And are undressed along their way by the

Sea’s smoky breath

So only a wisp of memory

Hope and love reaches god

 

They say

The pearly soul dances a final time

Seeing on the sea’s face

The mirror of its past lives

 

It is a swift dance a curlicue

A laugh only fishes hear and

Only the distance believes

And understands.






After Rooms By The Sea, 1951, by Edward Hopper



He has left me these rooms

And memories like blades by the sea

That sweep aside all flesh and memory of it

An exorcism in his absence that takes away all

But the sunlight and lapping bay that repeats,

I told you so

I told you so.

 

I know the deep blueness inside the sea that carries

Everything away would take me too if I let it

There at my fingertips it sings always

 

Instead I choose these rooms 

Changing diagrams of light as the 

Clean slate upon which to

Rebuild my life reclaim my days

Take down the trenchant night.

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Arya F. Jenkins’ poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in numerous online and print journals. Her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2015. She writes jazz fiction for Jerry Jazz Musician, an online zine. Publications are forthcoming in Black Scat Review and Sinister Wisdom. Her second poetry chapbook, Silence Has A Name, was published in 2015 by Finishing Line Press.