CW: death
They were boats, coffins and dinner tables
Someone showed us how to pack the hulls with bread
Brushing over the way the sustaining shapes
Doubled as fish
Which tripled as legs, crisscrossed
In braids, set to rise with the coming heat
The ingredients seemed to always be running out
But the presence, showing us the way
Not quite a dock worker or a chef
Managed to produce something scarce
From scarcity, and demonstrate how to eat
It, laying amongst the flopping loaves
Somewhere between dead and sleeping
Always ready to alight to the sea
Stomachs slowed, the way it is hard
To distinguish the metabolism of deep sleep
From the recently deceased
More and more boats were prepared
The wood constantly shape-shifting
Into three separate voyages
It took us all night
Until the sun baked the sky
To see through rainbow scales
How full we were
Russell Zintel lives north along the Hudson River with his partner KT and their cat. His work has appeared in decomP Magazine, Banango Street, Tiger Moth Review, and others.
Twitter @ZintelRussell