© Sauce*Box, Fall 1996.
All rights revert to author.
Starfish
by Ernest Slyman
At the ripening of the starfish eggs,
the male ejaculates into the ocean water,
and a few sperm penetrate the distant eggs.
--Fifth Grade Biology Notes
The moonlit swirls of tiny ecstatic sperm dance
In the blue water, spinning clockwise, and she knows by tasting them
The dreams of her children, flickering in the luminous waves
Of the ocean and stinging her with such joy and tenderness
That she cries out, swimming up to meet the milky clouds halfway,
Singing to herself and yearning for the touch
Of the red coral, and her passions are bright shimmering in the deep,
And giving her tentacles an orange glow in the dark.
She stretches out, sighing, reaching upward,
watching and waiting,
Rocking forward and back, thinking of him,
And when the one rapturous explosion tolls violently inside her,
The vast ocean once so perfectly still,
Erupts, startles the boats with her magnificent tumultuous love,
And the ocean for miles gurgles and spits for miles,
Splashes, its crests waves tossed high,
Gargling as though two great blue whales
Mating, which is the sign of the apocalypse,
And she feels suddenly pure, innocent,
Loved by every fish in the ocean,
And she hears them call her name.
And quietly as though there was nothing else,
The joyous splendors which ring inside her
Gush from her like brightly lit pieces of her soul,
Leaping in the distance, beating their tiny wings,
Hopping along on the tops of lobsters and crabs.
And when she closes her eyes,
A silver plume in her heart quivers
Of the sensual passion sprung free,
Wildly excited as never before,
And even the sharks are jealous,
And the jellyfish morally superior beings,
Virgins unto death, knelling at the bottom
Of the ocean, gazing up at the whole spectacle,
Queerly and roundly puzzled by the commotion,
Ask themselves what, what was it all about
* * * * *
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