You were a lovely giant
of a man—wide blue eyes
sincere as the ocean
is unexplored
& always amazed
as if seeing really seeing
the sliced azure of a papilio ulysses
for the first time
as it dipped & shivered
in a dance with your fingers.
You loved the skin of crocs--
their plates & the horn on top
like that of turtle shell
& bird feet its ridges
resembling eggs
or raindrops or tears
sometimes black-scorched-golden
& others with lines
of moss stitched by sun
& water.
You wrestled crocs to safety
& you could have wrestled the men
who laughed at the idea
of wearing their skin
on human feet
yet you wept
because all you knew
was compassion
even for the creature called human.
You praised the slimy the dripping
those with teeth stained brown
& ancient coming at us
through murky nightmares
those banded sea snakes
deadlier than a King
cobra as they writhe
through waves
the riparian
the beasts
You left this world
doing what you were meant
to do—you knew
you would—swimming
in the dark with the dark
as it fluttered smooth
fins under spangles
of sun striving
to break the unloved
out of our nightmares
Author Bio:
t.m. thomson has been in love with poetry since she was very young; her first poem was about colors. She draws much of her poetic inspiration from nature and art, both reality and artifice. Often poems occur to her while she takes walks or while her hands are immersed in soil. She refers to herself not as a “gardener,” but rather as a “player in mud.” Her work has most recently appeared in Wild Roof Journal and Whispering Prairie Press: Kansas City Voices and will be featured in Blue Ash Review and mutiny! magazine in the upcoming months. Three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards, and she is the co-author of Frame and Mount the Sky, a book of ekphrastic poetry, and author of Strum and Lull (2019) and The Profusion (2019). She has a writer’s page at https://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWrite
of a man—wide blue eyes
sincere as the ocean
is unexplored
& always amazed
as if seeing really seeing
the sliced azure of a papilio ulysses
for the first time
as it dipped & shivered
in a dance with your fingers.
You loved the skin of crocs--
their plates & the horn on top
like that of turtle shell
& bird feet its ridges
resembling eggs
or raindrops or tears
sometimes black-scorched-golden
& others with lines
of moss stitched by sun
& water.
You wrestled crocs to safety
& you could have wrestled the men
who laughed at the idea
of wearing their skin
on human feet
yet you wept
because all you knew
was compassion
even for the creature called human.
You praised the slimy the dripping
those with teeth stained brown
& ancient coming at us
through murky nightmares
those banded sea snakes
deadlier than a King
cobra as they writhe
through waves
the riparian
the beasts
You left this world
doing what you were meant
to do—you knew
you would—swimming
in the dark with the dark
as it fluttered smooth
fins under spangles
of sun striving
to break the unloved
out of our nightmares
Author Bio:
t.m. thomson has been in love with poetry since she was very young; her first poem was about colors. She draws much of her poetic inspiration from nature and art, both reality and artifice. Often poems occur to her while she takes walks or while her hands are immersed in soil. She refers to herself not as a “gardener,” but rather as a “player in mud.” Her work has most recently appeared in Wild Roof Journal and Whispering Prairie Press: Kansas City Voices and will be featured in Blue Ash Review and mutiny! magazine in the upcoming months. Three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards, and she is the co-author of Frame and Mount the Sky, a book of ekphrastic poetry, and author of Strum and Lull (2019) and The Profusion (2019). She has a writer’s page at https://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWrite
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