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These Here Are Scoundrels
And no man down.
Going to the water now.
Slow, or the wave.
Single-file; the rocks have no vengeance.
Will it, at the bottom the water won’t move.
Feet deep in the sand.
Planted.
The anemone supports itself.
Are the slow steady call.
Do you hear it or has it filled your ears?
The small build up of a snail.
Touching its foot.
Time us.
We have no shame, only when turning ‘round.
Means we’re not coming back, does it?
Setting up for the bells.
Sinking the bread you’ve given us.
Are not to return the prayer.
Heads down, below our arms.
We are reaching as if for thread.
Ariadne us.
Preparing the lungs as the chosen hold.
Are to gape the sea.
We are safe here.
*
Latitude Allowed For
the multi-momentary flash
of an actor’s penis
for the girls
to want
the grand opening
of a corner store
the screen on which
both are happening
simultaneously
engulfs the sea
I will you splice
the shore
into something
warmer than hand
borrowed and returnable
will you be the hurled
and I what tips you
most of these things are
longer that we
would have liked
the actor whose
we saw earlier
has turned me down
has turned around
these are songs
you wish we hadn’t
learned
films that will
make you stupid
I wave you unedited
sea sound
how lazy can you be
to forget some ways
you haven’t
answered my letters
not even in a
projection over
the Black Sea
it swarms
with sharks these days
and they move
so beautifully
toward you
Marina Kaganova writes poems, studies the Caucasus, and lives in Brooklyn most of the year. She has acquired some degrees, mostly of resilience to the elements, and is very grateful. Marina likes but can be unsettled by: exhaustion, food, Thomas Bernhard, toy apples, and singing with Supruli choir and Ensemble Buadze. She also really enjoys duct tape, fishing wire, and suspending things. She would like to thank Jennifer for reminding her, time and again, that it's okay to keep writing.