Seaside Delicatessen
Originally published in
Seaside Delicatessen
we knew what we consumed
as we watched the cold sea gently eat the islands
bite by tender
bite
the old pain swelling
swallowing those children
but not ours—never ours
not ours who were filling their buckets
again & again with sand & stones
in delight on the seashore
plumbing the tidal pools & grinning
their stash of wealth,
their bright hoarding
cupped in plastic & returning to grit—
broken cockleshells & sand dollars
blueblack mussels picked over by gulls
& curling kelp
umber entangled with neon green netting
[we smiled though we knew
—in truth, had always known]
remember before we had them
how our smiles were strung between us alone?
we were free then to fly up to Oslo for the weekend
where we stumbled through the thinning lavender nights
filling our bellies again & again
with reindeer carpaccio,
buttery blackbread
sweet anise, fermented elderflower:
always taking what we wanted, licking
our fingers indelicately & dreaming
our children might return here one day
to stretch & glide between the pine
& moss-covered rocks of the fjord
hang & plummet
break the icy seaglass surface
pluck up writhing herring
eat them raw
with bare brazen hands
—Sarah Yost
ⓒ Sarah Yost 2023