Susan Charkes
TWO POEMS

To Catch The Ocean In Your Bucket
You Have To Point Your Bucket Toward The Shore

remember the time you forgot
that bird’s name? the one

that sings all night if
you’re not listening. you wake

to snow on the lawn: that’s
how you know you missed

your calling. seagulls can drink
sea water yet dragonflies

choke on dragons. words are not
the answer, but they hold it for

safekeeping. mist fogging your
glasses obscures the haze.

◊

Hollows

1.
you would peel an orange in a single long strip, making
a beginning and an end.

2.
to addle a goose egg: coat with corn oil, smothering
the embryo. place it back in the nest:
she won’t know the difference.

3.
blind fish nibble at numbered ping-pong balls
cast into the underground river
whose mouth has never been found.

---

Susan Charkes lives in southeastern Pennsylvania where she is a freelance writer/editor and consultant. Her recent poetry has been published or is forthcoming in, among others, APIARY, Gargoyle, Prick of the Spindle, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Spoon River Poetry Review. She is also the author of three nonfiction books.

Image credit: “Bucket” by  zizzybaloobah on Flickr

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #6.