Tonight, an august moon, the largest in seventy years,
tugs the tide closer
and perhaps I should let it take me
back to the brine I was birthed from.
Three thousand euros in the Trevi fountain each day,
six hundred mirrors sunken
in a sacred Japanese pond.
It must be an earthly thing, to glory
in the unknown territories of oceans,
that which both sustains and drowns.
What is this impulse to throw worth to the water
in exchange for wishes?
I am not like you. The water terrifies me,
vacuous darkness consuming my toes.
Even in seas like cracked moonstone,
I quicken and balk. What is down there?
We crawled from the depths
for a reason.
M. J. Arlett was born in the UK and now lives in Texas where she is pursuing her PhD. She is an editor at the Plath Poetry Project, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in B O D Y, The Boiler, Lunch Ticket, Poet Lore, Mud Season Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere.