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Benjamin Gorman

Shipwrecked

Once, in the land of Ecrovid,
‌                                                         a man found himself
‌                                  chewing on fish bones
‌           he’d plucked from a pile of ashes on the beach.
He stared out into the blue
‌           under blue
‌                       under blue
and thought of his son across the sea
‌                                                           in need of a father,
‌                                     of all his supportive friends,
and the inappropriate, sometimes amusing support from strangers,
‌             like the two laughing boys riding a camel
‌                         who invited him into the desert to forget,
‌                                     or the woman who showed him a picture of herself
‌                                                 kissing a different stranger
‌                                     and didn’t explain why,
‌                          or the turtle who had surfaced
‌              while he clung to the broken mast.

The turtle had said he would be fine
‌            if he could only get to the beach beyond the sunset
‌                        because that’s where baby turtles come from.
It made no sense to the man
‌                                    but nothing did.
So when the three mountains
‌            peaked over the horizon
‌                         he’d followed the turtle’s directions.
But the beach was empty.
And all the strangers
shouted kindnesses from a great distance
‌                       about the beauty of certain parts of the land of Ecrovid
‌           places he could not reach.
And no one rescued him.

He thought about the storm while he chewed the bones.
‌            She had come upon the boat so quickly
‌                        Striking with lightning.
‌                                     Sinking with efficiency.
‌                                                 You cannot be angry at storms
‌                                                             for being storms.
‌                                                                         Or at ashes for tasting
‌                                                                                     like ashes.
‌                                                                                                 Or at innocent fish
‌                                                                                                            consumed by
‌ ‌                                                                                                                      long dead fire.

Benjamin Gorman is the author of The Sum of Our Gods, Corporate High School, and The Digital Storm. His novel Don’t Read This Book will be released in March of 2019. He runs an independent press for genre fiction called Not a Pipe Publishing. Gorman lives and teaches in Independence, Oregon. Learn more at Teacher Gorman.com

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