BY Sara Cahill Marron
The Water was with god,
and the water was god
we twisted Silicon Valleys
to Silicon Fjords for Halibut
to thrive off petrol plants
The Age of Oil
is ending and pandemics
of population chew
through food chains.
If I could grow gills
I’d join an orca pod
learn to hunt the seals
despite being finless
You tell me
anything’s possible now
in the hatchery tanks
we grow fish
revive the dead with Narcan
What else shall we mechanize
to protect the seed stores
of Iceland from God’s flood?
I will learn to swim
apex predator of land and sea
I will become an Amazonia
butterfly to drink tears
of turtles for their minerals
crying at the pain
when I stand on its back
such sensitive nerves
on the hard shell
I don’t believe in transformation
But if there are butterflies
that need turtle tears
maybe they know about god
because it’s not me
or this rosary
a plane soars overhead
gashing the sky
forever worshipping gravity
I refuse to fall
desperate to stand still
enough to join the forest
of Babel birdsong chatters
chortling on every corner
stuck between seasons of prayer
My stone spine set
carved as a crescent moon
kneeling in soft sands of washed
up gastropods, cuttlefish, ammonite,
hoping the sea
Forgives me
first when she invades.
Sara Cahill Marron, native Virginian and Long Island resident, is the author of Reasons for the Long Tu’m (Broadstone Books, 2018), Nothing You Build Here, Belongs Here (Kelsay Books 2021), and Call Me Spes (MadHat Press 2022). She earned her master's degree from St. John's University in 2016 and her juris doctorate from The George Washington University Law School in 2021. She is is a member of the DC Bar. She is the Associate Editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly and publisher at Beltway Editions. Sara also teaches poetry in modern discourse programs for teens at the public library in Patchogue, NY.