Everyman
answers to Noah. As the ark’s door
violently shuts on the world I asked
why the ocean was deeper than me.
His face turned blue, touch became
tremors, & there, on the equator’s
hot waistline, I tried to breathe below
sea level, dangling from an anchor
shaped like a cross, guilty of loving
helpless things who never asked for help.
When measuring the distance between
depth & desire & how long innocence
floats on its back before predator’s circle
sunlit skin & the sky is torn by the
anguish of birds with nowhere to land
but judgement, I peeked through cracks
in salvation’s yacht & nothing looked
back at me.
Daniel Edward Moore lives in Oak Harbor Washington on Whidbey Island with the poet Laura Coe Moore, where together they co-manage the Oak Harbor Poetry Project. His poems are forthcoming in Weber Review, The Cape Rock, Magnolia Review, Kestrel, The Phoenix, Red Earth Review, Writer’s Block Magazine, Ramblr and RipRap. He has one chapbook Boys (Duck Lake Books 2019). His full book Waxing the Dents, a finalist for the Brick Road Poetry Prize, was released February 1, 2020. Visit him at Danieledwardmoore.com
