Suzanne Swanson

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the storm prowled in last night

left heaving      roar     against quiet

whitecaps as teeth     a thousand maws under the horizon

last night they were monstrous     the white    the collapse   I call it ocean   sometimes
I call it sea to minimize to manage    I say like a heart   like a pulse    yet    who would want this
arrhythmia         

they say a sea is its own not part of an ocean    a gull laughs to hear it  here, wave, make a border    and
wave has ears only for itself

perhaps this morning     became a syncopated lullaby        mythic mother shushing   she is begging
sleep to come       begging child to greet sleep   she is  twisting    desperation   into  impatient    hum
into water’s    drowsy  hush  

Suzanne Swanson is the author of House of Music and the chapbook What Other Worlds: Postpartum Poems. She is a Loft Mentor Series winner and helped found Laurel Poetry Collective. Recent poems have appeared in SWWIM and Salamander. She rows on the Mississippi River and is happiest near big water.