Plea
That suffocation of bedclothes—sheets, blanket, duvet—
trapping the body in a dread of moon glare, shrieking owl,
creeping midnight omnivores. He wants to die, he insists.
Your flurry of replies flops like futuring fish. He can only hear
your oily skin, sheen of quicksilver stressing the wire.
You can’t convince someone to live, but you sure can try. You
cast, and you cast. The whirring of line echoes in the hollow
of the hull. Please don’t die. Please don’t die. Please. Don’t.
Die. Restlessness of a drowning boat, broken oars, undoable
rowing below the bone-chilling. The rope ladder descends
into a tangle of impenetrable seaweed. The weight of water
crushes all the air-filled spaces. You are left burdening
the brine, begging the vessel to right, to slip back into an easy
exchange of the mundane. Good morning. Good morning.
Tori Grant Welhouse is a poet from the Midwest. Her newest poetry chapbook is Padding Loamy on a Brew of Earth from Bottlecap Press. She has been most recently published in RockPaperPoem and nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. More at www.torigrantwelhouse.com.