I dreamed there was a flower called “Sea’s fool”That bloomed wild, dawdling on the shore, unkempt,Wind-tousled. Glamored by the name, I dreamtThe pink tinge of a second-water jewel.With trefoil leaves, in clover-globes, it grewAlong some rocky fringe of coast I knew,In pockets of sand along a tidal pool.Dreaming, I didn’t wonder what it meant,But waking, there was no such thing: “Sea’s fool”Was something I had dreamed up. To inventA thing only to lose it—I could seeThe plant clear as its name, could almost feelThe heart-shaped leaves’ rough cat-tongue texture, realAs the fool’s grief dreaming of the seizeful sea.
Sea’s fool
A. E. Stallings
Feature Date
- June 18, 2018
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Copyright © 2018 by A. E. Stallings
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission
18-Jun
New York, New York
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