Let me draw the brine of the water
to my throat, sink in a dipper until
it’s laden.  My lips will drink and
crack, wracked with salt.  If the
ocean is where I must go delving,
hear me clam-cracker, soft diving
magician: I will take you for my
own, row with you in long strokes
until fur graces my limbs and I
float on the breast of the icy sea.

[Alicia Cole, a writer and educator, lives in Lawrenceville, GA, with her photographer husband, their cat Hatshepsut, and two schools of fish.  Her poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Electric Velocipede, Asimov’s, and Mythic Delirium.  Her musings on writing and life can be found at three-magpies.livejournal.com.]