|
| |
House by the Sea
They hang like a beaded curtain
in a fortune teller’s parlor,
each buoy a bauble
from the sea’s own trove—
sun-faded,
barnacle-bitten,
unstrung from nets
that once strained tides for omens.
Now they sway in the wind,
rattling secrets and guarding
the doorway to elsewhere.
Who dwells behind the curtain—
a castaway witch, perhaps,
who brews fog in mason jars
and weaves seaweed into capes?
A fisherman’s widow still waiting
for him to return from
his final fateful voyage?
Or maybe no one at all,
just wind and longing
and salt-stung light
curling around a chipped enamel cup.
Or maybe an infinitely
unfolding maze that traps
who enters in eternal twilight
where each corridor breathes
with the hush of retreating tides,
walls papered in kelp and longing,
ancient air that smells of old shipwrecks
and unanswered questions.
Some say you can hear a voice
calling your name—not as it is,
but as it was
before you forgot
what you came looking for.
And yet the house remains,
perched above the tide line,
porch sagging like an old shoulder,
paint peeled by salt and time.
Through warped windowpanes
the ebbing light still flickers—
not warm, exactly,
but not unwelcoming.
Seagulls gliding in a gyre.
A foghorn’s distant intonation.
And always, the buoys tapping,
as if to say:
You’re closer than you think.
Copyright ©
Roxanne Andorfer
|
|