The Polluted Ocean of Parental Rights
The sand sticks a little more this August:
to boys with reedy bird-boned torsos,
abdomens scooped out and shoulders
dusted with the sun, presiding over
hulking blocks of half-done castles, lacking
turret shells and armor;
to their sincerity, bound as to a barnacle,
as a seahorse to its plastic father as he jogs
carelessly onward, never following the tide,
always cresting at the bulwarks;
to a mother’s plea released to sea foam,
ribs opened upward, sole bared and
glassy beads gathered round ankle and toe,
washed away in sacrifice
on a beach full of weedy greedy traces of
what comes next.
Courtney Seymour received her B.S. in Biology from Union College, and an M.L.S. (Library Science) and M.A. in English from the State University of New York at Albany. She is a librarian, instructor of research and persuasion at Southern New Hampshire University, mother of three boys, sometimes-writer/poet, and volunteer advocate for those affected by sexual and domestic violence, stalking, and human trafficking.