by Melissa Eleftherion

 

ecologies
in the rolling fog,
how light mutes here
everything vulnerable & beholding

limpets cling fierce to their rocks
to their special little scars,
appear themselves
as wave retreats,

as does the costate shell,
the eelgrass, the feather boa kelp,
the snail & the chiton,
exposed in a milk blue of interiors.

awe in the rigor
& among soft coral
nacreous belly of a labyrinth
it’s the rocks, all the while that get me

the hard & the fissure
the fragment & tender
iridescent wonder in
a sea of countless living things

ancient sea deposits,
fossilized shells,
petrified wood & dinosaur bones
in a coastal dune environment

in a marine environment
shale, a greyish rock
a tidal flat, how we form
layer upon layer, balancing.

index of a shell structure
composition a requisite
mirror among the
sorting/party of minerals

gypsum & halites excused themselves
before the chitinous
interlude/invertebrates,
exoskeletons/the dream of the sea

all late winter
a dry indehiscence
I coax & struggle,
watch for decay,

stand poised to
gather dust,
feather & tether this tending,
what emerges from such care

 

 

 

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Melissa Eleftherion (she/they) is a writer, a librarian, and a visual artist. Born & raised in Brooklyn, she holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Mills College, and San Jose State University. They are the author of two poetry collections, field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & gutter rainbows (Querencia Press, 2024), and twelve chapbooks including abject sutures (above/ground press, 2024). Their work has been widely published & featured in venues like Verse Daily, Sixth Finch, Entropy, & Barren Magazine. Melissa now lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Branch Library, curates the LOBA Reading Series, and serves as Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Ukiah. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com. She can also be found on Facebook @melissa.eleftherion, Instagram @apoetlibrarian, and Bluesky: @apoetlibrarian.bsky.social.