A Penny Sonata

I put on my penny beethoven
and cry myself to sleep
draining at the limbs

an ocean dreamed me to life once

I say I love fish, but in truth
I mean the taste of them
and the pretty swish of their tails

this is the century of our drowning

knee-deep already
and we still say the future
as if it were a place

a kiss shall not wake me, but

oh the embrace
my three penny moonlight makes
the first move

This poem appears in


A Flower Room

© Brendan Bonsack
April 2019