Buzzards Bay by Bryan Edenfield

Buzzards Bay, by Helen Frankenthaler, 1959.

Buzzards Bay

1

The smell of salt water and damp soil marbleize the calm pools, bend the neck bone and I fall into a dense wind, a weightlessness, a whistle that deteriorates smoothly like the matted hair of sunbeams, disc-like, on my cheeks. No grit, no trauma, only a lifeless warm wave, a wound of islands like pleasant gashes in the flat flesh of the sea. Caw to the swaying limbs at dusk, a coolness meeting a silence. Caw to the mist drops whispering onto our silk arms. Caw to the crumbling rocks beneath our toes; a family that tears the body into lines we cannot hear. Somewhere there is a metal railing and a concrete slab and a cackling bird’s talon plays a toy piano. Somewhere here is the curvature of the earth like a smile in the palm of my hand.

2

The ocean is a fist colliding with the burn hot sand.

Birds tearing down the edge of a rushing wind.

Birds sliding down the sweet slope of a mountain.

It’s cool to the south away from the sun today underneath the still tall trees. And as the whipping winds eat away at the earth and fling debris into the water, as the whipping winds lift and flick droplets of water onto our sun slammed faces, I am flat and empty. Not in a bad way, but the bird, I hear its beak ripping from its face. The feathers disintegrate and rain down from somewhere violent.
Did it lift that fish from the waves? Is that the sound of suffocating?

Can we dive into the nearby pond now?
 
Bryan Edenfield

Bryan Edenfield was born in Arizona but has lived in Seattle since 2007.  He is the co-founder and director of the literary arts organization, Babel/Salvage.  He also hosts and curates the Glossophonic Showcase, which airs live on Hollow Earth Radio semi-regularly, and co-hosts and co-curates the Ogopogo Performance Series at the Pocket Theater.

He has a degree in philosophy and history and works at an art museum, so don't worry.