Bottles at Sea

by Rebecca Ellis

I poured my agonies into bottles
And sent them overseas
In streams
To him, praying for safe passage
And safe return.

Caught along with the silver swarming
They lost themselves, thrown down
By calloused hands
To meet the heave of floundering death
On wood from long-gone harvests;
On earth that touches
His feet.

Those dear hands
Once smooth and known
Take an executioner's mask
And steel the eyes
Against the reading of my words.
Tipped to the edge of paper worlds,
They wait in tightened strings
For cries of GO.

They'll never come, for he never saw
The pattern of my letter's cluster
Spun deep in falling sand.
I dreamt up sharp sight
For the unthreading of costume
In my lovely memory creation -
But now my flowing sweat
Is burnt to drips,
From fear that ink should swirl
Unpinned, and knowing
That his love, unpenned,
Was too weak
In my hot red mouth;
My black O of despair.

To read more of Rebecca's work, click HERE

Art Fist needs you!
All of the content on artfist.org is submitted by volunteers looking to showcase their work. To submit your own work, simply send it to artfist@live.com for consideration. We accept: images, videos, poetry, reviews, features, comics, interviews, short stories, comedy, rants, opinion pieces... anything which is creative or about creativity.

In partnership with: