Kelly Cressio-Moeller
Pelagic
A water unlike any other water ~ Joanna Klink
At Point Lobos, a woman mentions she nearly drowned at Monastery
Beach – some days she can still taste brine.
Pleurisy of tissue and wave: kick harder, kick harder.
Grow a third lung, line it with desire. Holdfast. Hold. Fast.
Cormorant deep-dives, belly full of pebbles. Flash your blue
throat to me! Build us a nest, carino, con posidonie e fiori.
Tie the boat in the shallows, hike through dune asters,
a clutch of bees, thick bullwhips beached on black stones.
18th century vaqueros broke mustangs along coastal bluffs, mistook
barking sea lions for wolves. Gray whale cries ghosting the cove.
Sway-balanced on driftwood, a great blue heron syncs with my ship-
wrecked vertigo, slow motion wingbeats carry her away.
Poseidon chases down the sun. Storm-footed chariot. White-
starred Hippocampi. Coffin bones hammer the seafloor gold.
In the Whaler’s Cabin, a man spoke about the sea –
how it took his boy and didn’t give him back.
Giant kelp coppers teal water, long garlands wreathe into laurel
crowns as if all Olympus is surfacing.
*note: con posidonie e fiori - with seagrass and flowers
Kelly Cressio-Moeller’s poetry has new work forthcoming in Gargoyle and Iodine Poetry Journal. Some previous publications can be found in burntdistrict, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Southern Humanities Review, Spillway, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and ZYZZYVA among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. Visit her website at www.kellycressiomoeller.com
Return to September 2015 Edition
A water unlike any other water ~ Joanna Klink
At Point Lobos, a woman mentions she nearly drowned at Monastery
Beach – some days she can still taste brine.
Pleurisy of tissue and wave: kick harder, kick harder.
Grow a third lung, line it with desire. Holdfast. Hold. Fast.
Cormorant deep-dives, belly full of pebbles. Flash your blue
throat to me! Build us a nest, carino, con posidonie e fiori.
Tie the boat in the shallows, hike through dune asters,
a clutch of bees, thick bullwhips beached on black stones.
18th century vaqueros broke mustangs along coastal bluffs, mistook
barking sea lions for wolves. Gray whale cries ghosting the cove.
Sway-balanced on driftwood, a great blue heron syncs with my ship-
wrecked vertigo, slow motion wingbeats carry her away.
Poseidon chases down the sun. Storm-footed chariot. White-
starred Hippocampi. Coffin bones hammer the seafloor gold.
In the Whaler’s Cabin, a man spoke about the sea –
how it took his boy and didn’t give him back.
Giant kelp coppers teal water, long garlands wreathe into laurel
crowns as if all Olympus is surfacing.
*note: con posidonie e fiori - with seagrass and flowers
Kelly Cressio-Moeller’s poetry has new work forthcoming in Gargoyle and Iodine Poetry Journal. Some previous publications can be found in burntdistrict, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Southern Humanities Review, Spillway, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and ZYZZYVA among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. Visit her website at www.kellycressiomoeller.com
Return to September 2015 Edition