~
“bitter breast-cares have i abided”
The whale she had come to save was long dead, its bones flensed of fat and skin. Soon-Yi grimaced and pinched her nostrils. She had penetrated a scent bubble of fecal matter and poached organs. An ovary lay in the sand and a row of teeth formed a half-smile.
Closer to the site, Soon-Yi trampled silica-rich sand that sang like ocean sprites and watched a small dog run down a Frisbee launched into the ocean’s surf. Over and over again, the dog pursued its quarry into the water and returned the disc to its owner.
And then the man performed a sleight of hand trick, feigned throwing the Frisbee far into the ocean and hid it behind his back. The dog swam the impossible trajectory of the man’s hand, scouring the horizon and always breathing once more before his last.
Soon-Yi stripped and waded into the surf and in the direction of the dog, her arms cutting the waves, her powerful leg muscles kicking and her long, black hair undulating in breaking, white foam.
At that moment, she knew she had a decision to make: singing sands or singing sirens and what would she do for want of forgotten things?
*editor’s note, the title is taken from the Ezra Pound poem “The Seafarer”
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Dean Gessie is a poet and author who has won or placed in 100 international literary competitions. Dean was included in The 64 Best Poets of 2018 and 2019 by Black Mountain Press in North Carolina. Additionally, Dean was a medal winner for the Nosside Poetry Prize in Italy. He also won the Enizagam Poetry Contest in California, the Ageless Authors Poetry Contest in Texas, the Spoon River Editors’ Prize in Illinois and the Frank O’Hara Prize in Massachusetts. Dean’s short story collection – Anthropocene – won an Eyelands Book Award in Greece and the Uncollected Press Prize in Maryland.