Low Tide by Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin

Low Tide

Like scribbles on the sludge,

trails of broken mollusks

weave and split and branch

into mats of uprooted grasses

ominous as the limbs of tangled spiders

Feathers, dead birds, a dirty diaper and

the crumpled scraps of someone’s lunch,

a chipped saucer

They spread out from the sea

No room for thought, only the reek of mud

and dead fish baking in the sun

No one wants to be there at low tide,

naked, pores open to the stink,

even as we know the brim and swell of high times

hold the pact of the low

and it will simply come one day

It just is

We each get our turn.

Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin’s poetry has appeared in October Hill Magazine, Ovunque Siamo, Blue Unicorn, Crow & Cross Keys, Ephemeral Elegies, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere. Her short speculative fiction has been published in Supernatural Tales, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Luna Station Quarterly, and other places. She has authored a horror novel, Snare, and has a few writing secrets still up her sleeve.