by Maggie Blake Bailey
Salt skin and the tin
smell of the sea dying.
The mouth of the tide
and a yellow plastic bucket.
Where the shore turns black,
I scan for holes, bubbles,
breathing in the ground.
At night we steam shells
open, pry flesh loose,
drag it in butter so all
we taste is fat and the sea.
Maggie Blake Bailey’s poems appear in Tar River, Ruminate, San Pedro River Review and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Bury the Lede, is available from Finishing Line Press and her full-length debut, Visitation, will be available from Tinderbox Editions in 2019. She lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband and two children.