Flush Left | Erin Lynn Marsh | 01 27 23

The Lake of You

Love, I can see so clearly to the bottom
of you. Pearl scaled fish swim by and I imagine
a feast in my bed—you pick up a bite
with your thumb and forefinger, offer it to me. 

I can see the pennies I threw in, hoping 
you would be patient and kind about my anxiety, 
lining the soft silt bottom of you. 

As a child, I dug my tender feet
into the lake bottom to feel the supple
sediment between my toes. Then, a sharp
prick of pain and I looked down to see blood
feathering out into the glassy, sun infused water. 

This evening I will go fishing on Howard Lake. 
I will catch one, pull the hook from 
its translucent mouth, and throw it back—
watch it swim away from the boat. 

I think about how you have released me too 
into the shallowness of you—how I am scared
and in pain, but swim toward deeper waters.

—Submitted on 10/18/2022

Erin Lynn Marsh is the author of I May Never be Able to Stop Writing Love Poems (Jackpine Writers’ Bloc, 2022) and Disability Isn’t Sexy (Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Post Road Magazine, Sugar House Review, Paper Darts, CRE8, and Emrys Journal, among others. She holds an MFA from Lesley University in Boston. She lives in Bemidji, Minn.

Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.

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