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Carmen Lupton Sea Lesson I've been sucking sea waste from the floor like a catfish on her rounds. I've been chewing on scraps of dialogue. Now I listen to great big shells & tiny pink ones, too, and the tiny ones tell me a story I can almost taste & lick my lips with, and then I'm muttering ocean words to myself like silt, seaweed and algae turf. I've been in this rocking chair for hours watching you and you and you swim by wise as flounders, paying no mind to turbulence from yachts and sharks. My gills still weep from time to time, flap then lie still against my sides & lose the desire to breathe. I'm fingering foam for the words to say the waves tremble like a knee holding back its reflex. Without so much as a lifeguard's whistle, the ocean's mouth slams shut, & I'm left alone drunk on salt, chest filled with blurry prayers, waiting to drown and at the same time, dying to know oceanography. ©2003 by Carmen Lupton Born to an Irish mother and Spanish father, Carmen Lupton is a poet, writer, and editor. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies, including Mondo Barbie and DC Poets Against the War: An Anthology. Lupton was a finalist for the 2004 Rita Dove Poetry Award, and in 2003, she won Second Prize in the Larry Neal Poetry Competition. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

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