Sea Change

By Jennifer Pullen

Whelks line my shoes and

teach me how to stick to things

Seagulls dropped you at my feet

I ate your flesh between the cracks.

Venus was born from the sea

but I could die there,

sand fills my eyes and

you bury me to the breasts.

This is erasure this is loss

this is the beautiful wreck covered

in coral that makes fans of cannons

and skeletons of fans.

Kiss me here under the deep

where the pressure is too great.

*

Jennifer Pullen is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio Northern University, where she teaches creative writing and literature classes, including courses on fairy tales, fantasy, science fiction, and environmental literature. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals and anthologies including: Cleaver, Behind the Mask (Meerkat Press), F(r)iction, Prick of the Spindle, and Lunch Ticket. Her chapbook A Bead of Amber on Her Tongue won the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction contest.