by Alba Sarria

CW: Miscarriage, blood, and mourning.

The ocean comes out in mourning now
and I wade out, tepidly.
At some point you ceased
but I stayed black-veiled
and waiting,
forced hopeful
as the little red beads
crept down the curved inside
of my thighs:

Your life escaping me
one drop
at a time.

The pre-dawn fish gather,
mouths suckling.
If I cannot have you
then they will take you in—

You will swim the rhythm
of the tides,
extend your silvery scales
against the current,
feel the rush of strength
power
in a fin-flip escape
from gulls.

The ocean is ceaseless.
If the reef sharks have you
then every-moving, graceful
predator you will be.
If the whales have you
then ancient singing memory keeper
you will be.
When the scavengers and
the osedax worms claim you
then everything you will be.

Soon the morning sun will waken.
Her luminous fingers will warp pinkened waves
into blue,
shuddering away the aches of last night–you–
into memory.

Soon too, I will return to the rental
house of wave-eaten stone
to sit idle beneath the warming window
as my husband kneads, sings, folds
dough for breakfast.

I will tell him the swim was good
the dawn was kind,
the fish gentle,
the air hopeful,
and he will never know.

Alba Sarria is a horror poet and flash fictionist fascinated by all things eerie and disquieting entangled with folklore, who on occasion branches out to write more personal tomes. Alba s the 2018 CSPA Gold Circle winner for Free Form Poetry, the 2021 Short Fiction CM, a 2022 Pushcart nominee, and the 2021 William Heath Award recipient. She is on Twitter @albasarwrites.