I Was the Moon Stalking a Castaway
I enjoy most how you tan your velvet underbelly
in a pool of my own light.
How long can I watch you
wrestle lizards into rolling papers,
fish scales tangled in a salt pepper beard,
and an understanding that neither are poor decorum.
There was only ever your one prayer
floated to me rolled in a bottle,
silent as memory. Whispered before into sand
for gossip amongst the conch shells,
it was your desire to be one with the ecosystem
that was growing under your waterspout,
fulfilled.
But what is left of your beliefs,
and why do they move like poisonous caterpillars
through the mangos?
When did I begin to hover
just above you while you slept? Weeping
at my lack of mouth
that could be used for tasting your dreams,
gnawing at their core, screaming
you will die here.
So will what was ours.
The fruit, the minutes swathed in pale sunlight
until they showed like lacework,
the lullaby of the waves breaking the shores maidenhead:
Ours, ours, ours. Let me promise
to guide the starlight
through the sand to char your bones.
Then you’ll allow the sun and me
to become the two backed beast
one more time.
Alexis Santos is a graduating senior at SUNY Oswego majoring in broadcasting and mass communications and minoring in creative writing. She has not the slightest idea of what to do after graduation, but she loves reading, dogs, and warm weather.