Page 15 - WTP Vol. IX #9
P. 15
Red Tide
Karenia brevis rambles a slow surf, a Gulf that’s remembered perfect blue. My bronchiae fill with pins, nasals run. Acrid air slices my open eyes.
In the darkened wave no swimming this Thanksgiving.
Some humans call this era the Anthropocene. As though we were more than fleshy needles on Nature’s world-tree.
A single cell organism is resilient: can live without water an eon or more.
Sewage and field run-off find upwellings in the water column. Nutrients we flush spread a pantry in the sea.
Who is the host? Who is the guest?
Public service announces No one should get sick
from a day at the beach as half-time ends for Bears at Lions. Our defenses complicated, the real is simple.
Gilliland is the author of The Ruined Walled Castle Garden (2020), winner of the Bright Hill Press Chapbook Competition, and Gather- ing Fire (Ithaca House, 1982). Her poetry has been anthologized
in Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms In Our Hands, Strange Histories, The &Now Awards:The Best Innovative Writing, and Wild Gods. The many journals that have published her work include WTP, AGNI, Poetry, Chautauqua, Poetry Ireland, Seneca Review and Passages North. Read our exclusive WTP interview here.
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