Cindy King

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Queen of the Night

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I couldn’t sleep at all last night, 

in other words, being asleep and thinking I’m sleeping 

are drifting closer together, overlapping, being one. 

That the brainwaves I’m receiving are sometimes furred 

with lichen, at others, pointed, icicle-sharp.

Like Hamlet and Gertrude sparring in public, 

no worries over who might bear witness. 

But ultimately, Denmark’s everyone’s concern.

Or I was walking along the shoreline 

and the moonlight looked rotten, 

but since when am I an expert on the health 

of moonbeams? Shadow or light. Light breaking 

like a beurre blanc, spilling over rippling waves. 

Everything narrowing to a few pressing matters, i.e., 

for Hamlet, “Who’s there?” 

My father, too, is a ghost. 

Something rotten.  

Fish being a word for the thing swimming below 

the surface and the word for what kills it. 

Deer has never meant to hunt, nor does potato 

mean harvest, however that matters. 

The angle of the parallel-parked car, 

the tilt of the Rothko confined by a frame. 

The loss or gain, the shortcut or scenic route. 

To drink the poison or to throw oneself 

on the toxic blade. Crimson magic. 

Only the top of the buoy painted red, 

the rest remains unseen. Who’s there? 

The late-night bathers in various states of undress. 

Lovers loving on beach loungers 

because they have nowhere else to love 

(and maybe no one else, either). 

As if a heatwave invented infidelity, 

second marriage. Few have discussed this possibility 

but nonetheless have tested the hypothesis. 

Where sea and sand come together and the blossom 

opens once, bewitching us with fragrance, then closes for good.

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