By JDL Rosell

"Just when it is time to say goodbye
I think I am finally understanding the lightbulb..."
- Matthew Zapruder, "Your Eyes Are the Color of a Lightbulb Floating in the Potomac River"

Over the moon she sighed
birds cried I'm not that careful
I said and dried the knife

my ancestors the wolves the turtles you know
I erect on totem texts
the best memory better than photos maybe

the tuna maybe grouper dead on the shore
stalked by the seagull which walks
when I approach I lens its eye

yellow and peeling from the socket
DOA and someone's wicked beak
the sign would read they'd draw

a line in the sand hang yellow tape
waiting for the first tip
here it is: the tide rises

the tide towers like the Lord
like Kaitlyn and my spoon
the only one packed but a whole tub of ice cream melting

so when the man calls it's still there
on our way to the beach
I forget to look in her eye

to see if it's peeling or melting or still somehow whole

JDL Rosell is a candidate for a Master's in English at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. His poems have been previously published in Pif Magazine and The Rockhurst Review, with forthcoming work in Fractal Magazine and Literary Juice. (Updated June 2015)