Barnacles

Shape-shifting with each journey fresh,

so many crater mouths gape at sheer air

like baby birds in the nest,

held captive by the movement

of their own beak-spasms.

In slow motion, ovular cavities

nudge each other, simply to stay awake.

Scattered strands of slopes hold hands

with the woozy delight of misery shared.

Intoxicated by sheer medicine, and vaguely
grimacing at each grandly gaping neighbor,

their whispers mock the meager state
of the neglected garden.

All sense of time vanishes between

fingers who always know the way.

Such toothy grins shred flesh with a vengeance,

and soaked from the rain of sun’s perspiration,

drown nobly within the watery grave of a bottle top.

Once again, hot springs bubble up among the roses.

and all substance brittles despite the morning dew.

Old dreams breeze in flows of vivid fantasy.

They are lips of the shears spewing forth nonsense

with each and every clip, who despite paper's absence,

read bleeding subtitles with spongy patience feigned,

and pleasure in the kind of story that fears an end.

The alluring language of absence drops letters

and washes away, word for word,

the thoughts that touch rubbed raw.

As barnacles scrape across the mermaid,

with each wave grinding her down,

until she’s erased completely

from the face of the ship.

Jennifer Burnside