òran gaoil

My love sleeps

under a palm of

ocean // place holds

his pulse in

its jaw // cups him

like so much

river // long before he was

born, spirit hatched

into water // brushed the salt

from wilting

eyelids // lay with body

like two herons

twined in

language // and maybe

breath is

the eternal one,

flesh one // always puffing

in pairs // except for the first

and the

last //

____

Eartha Davis wishes to live simply, kindly, and most certainly by a river. She placed second in the 2022 Woorilla Poetry Prize Youth Section, with work published or forthcoming in Wildness, Frozen Sea Journal, South Florida Poetry Review, Arboreal Magazine, Hummingbird Blink, and Eunoia Review, among others.