The Cove
Its water an incredible, powerful beast
Dormant for years
Warmly welcoming her father’s fishing boat and allowing her to splash in the shallows as a child
Then suddenly awake
Awake
Awake and angry
Filled with the things people toss away
Plastic straws from summer picnics and papers with old news
It swallows all that come near
Swallows them in rising tides
And storms that have no mercy
Its waves, its hands, pound
Against rocks made smooth by weather and time
Wren
Her mother’s little bird
The one her father left behind when he found out
Left in the night in the boat that first caught her mother’s eye
She stands in the surf
Her white dress soaked through
Numb
Home
Her home
Its broken glass
And shells and things from the deep
Blown in from the storm
All covered in dust
A fractured nest
Since the storm
The storm that took everything
Family photos and china plates
Patio chairs and hand painted shutters
The storm that broke the glass and tore open the walls
The storm that sucked her mother into its maw
Taking her forever
And then left
Left the little bird by herself, without a mother
Alone she walks
The little of what’s left of her red hair
Caught in the cool summer breeze
The dust clinging to her dress
Her dress
Once so perfect
But torn and dirty now
Alone she walks
Through the town miles away from her broken home
The town of stares and whispers and pointed fingers
The town of normalcy and family dinners
Of barbecues and sunny days
The town of friends long gone
Gone, blaming her for her father’s choice
Vilifying her mother for not finding another
She’s learned to ignore it
She wouldn’t come here at all
But even little birds have to eat
By the market she sits
Tin can in hand
A tin can found in the wreckage of her home
The clink of people’s spare change her only hope
Relying on the guilt
Of people that call her mad
To them, she is simply a girl who went insane after the storm they barely noticed
Walking home
The dirt path again
Stale bread sandwich in hand
Fireflies flicker around her
Dancing in the dark of the twilit forest
Walking up the stairs
That creak and moan and bend
The door
A purple door
A rusted knob
At the table
Where she once sat with her mother braiding her hair
Red hair just like her own
But her eyes are her father’s
As the lights flickered on and off
And a harsh wind rattled the windows
The booming thunder
The crackling lightning
And clouds that can’t decide if they’re blue or gray
Now she sits
By herself
Red hair uneven
Cut by scissors she found in the bathroom
Trying to find sleep
On a blanket outside her mother’s door
Sleep doesn’t come
Instead come visions
Visions of running along the cove
With her mother and a faceless man
Visions of family dinners on Sundays
Her parents laughing at a joke she just told
About a pirate’s 80th birthday
And at bedtime
Her parents tell her the story of the wren
The one that wasn’t as strong or as fast as the other birds
But realized it didn’t necessarily need to be
And became king of the birds
But even in her dreams she knows none of it is real
Morning
The pale sunlight sneaks through the broken window
And dances upon her head
From the dust she rises
Walking out of the house
Down to the shore
The water calm and shimmering with early morning light
A washed up rowboat bobs gently on the surface
In that moment she makes a decision
Looking back at what was her home
But hasn’t been in months
Thinking of the possibilities
Of finding her father
Of joining her mother
She pushed off the shore
And flew away
Over the coral guts of the great beast