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EBB AND FLOW
She is a fickle mistress,
an aqueous dominatrix
with a liquid whip,
lashing at the shore,
untainted by remorse,
reminding her prisoners of that which they can never possess.
ISLAND MEMORIES
We all descend - scraped knees and sun-bleached hair into the dusk
Ready to unearth black treasure from the Sound’s salty jaws
A motley expedition - unarmed, no leader -
Just a shoal of ripe fingers scraping flesh from the ebbing tide
Sticky roe clusters make their escape along the regurgitating surf
As we continue to scuttle - frenzied - for those precious pearls, hidden
so deeply
along the shore's edge.
THE AUTOMAT
Five cent coffee and a slab of key lime pie
- it's all you really need in this weather.
Inside a Horn and Hardart
- sweet release for strident vowels
battened down by a prevailing wind
free now to dance like sugar plum fairies
from blue to white collar and back again
a cacophony of arms and hands
such speed with little plié
- Time Square's own Balanchine.
SUBWAY ELEGY
Submarine sandwich
waiting for the subway
listening to those homesick blues.
Missing the old country,
living in the big city
waiting for a small miracle to get me where I want to go.
Peeling paint behind me,
behind that old poster,
showing the latest movie which I think I saw a last year.
Wondering why I'm here,
why he's never there,
and why I can never catch the L on a Friday morning.
Train pulling in,
pulling people pushing out,
with me on a platform standing still.
A half-eaten sandwich,
a head full of Dylan
and a pocket full of tokens I'll never use.
— Annemarie O’Connor
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