A Series of Movements

 And with each step tile

 lays out before me.  It

 pushes from the grass

 clean without streaks.  When

 I change my path, the tile

 keeps ahead.  I walk it

 over traps.  Through the court-

 yard.  Around puddles and

 manholes, straight into the

 ocean where the water grabs

 deep for the buoy line.  After

 every small movement, my

 toes reel against the dry, caulk-

 colored flooring.  I stand still as

 possible for what feels like many

 minutes: terns and wrens picking

 my side for red clams, the tide washing beach

 up hard to my knees.  Bent back from the

 waist, the birds

 fill me with shells until

 my throat won't close. I cough like

 a night bell of Spanish maracas.  A hall to dark

 sea stays waiting below. My fingers are

 boneless.  I can't scratch my neck.

**

Daniel Khalastchi is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including Denver Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Court Green, Octopus Magazine, The New Hampshire Review, Fairy Tale Review, Sonora Review, and GutCult, among others.  A recent fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he currently teaches at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/khalastchid_poems.php