Under my wings (I think) I’m ticked by patterning sea salts.
A friend once told me that the crystals between whispered
Currents shifted and blazed the cracks of coral reefs
Were once bits of my father’s flesh, the old king of the sea.

I forget him sometimes, I was so young (and how young I still feel)

Harpooners search for me, but I lost pride the day I watched him slink
To the bottom of a different floor. Sand as his coffin.
I swim, splitting holy tides. These are the only places to
Find some sliver, a chance of a peaceful mind.

All things move apart in anticipation of my coming.
I glide and close my eyes and wish I could hide away from the stares.
It’s as if the pieces of the world can’t decide where they belong.
The krill still flop over broken bridges and hug my frigid chin.

I still weep.

So long I have lived without you, Father. So long without the twirls beneath
Strict and structured families of fist. I let those schools pass as they learn what I never will.

I’ve learned more about the wooden tables, carved by men without gills or scales.
The tables and chairs spread low across the floor
Dropped from shipwrecks my father caused so long ago
Tattered chips still float and other games that I don’t know.
The Queen of Hearts learned that she, too, loves to swim beside earth’s core.
Once I asked her of the crown adorning her head. She did not blink.
I wouldn’t know how to answer either, if she asked me how I became the King of the Sea.