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*Poem That Leaves Behind the Ocean*

–Jim Moore

1

I’ve always wanted to write a poem that ends

at the ocean. How the poem gets there

doesn’t much matter, just so at last

it arrives. The manatee will be there

we saw all those years ago,

almost motionless under the water

like a pendant swaying at an invisible throat,

the one my mother used to wear

on the most special of occasions. My God

is still there, the one I prayed to as a boy:

he never answered but that didn’t keep me

from calling out to him.

2

I turn off the notification app for good,

no longer needing to know exactly how many gone.

After all, clinging to life

is what we have always done best.

We are still trying to hide

from the truth of things and who

can blame us.

Lists don’t make sense anymore,

unless toilet paper and peanut butter head them.

Last-stage patients are not being told

how crowded the ferry will be

that will take them across the river.

3

We are forbidden cafés, churches, even cemeteries.

Fishing by ourselves, however, is still permitted. As long

as we keep nothing at all. As long as we walk

back home, in darkness, empty-handed,

breathing deeply, having thrown back

what was never ours to keep.

Photo by Conor Sexton on Unsplash