Two Poems

by Charlie Waddle

the whirring sound that seashells make when you hold them close to your ear

Split apart
pieces of glass
stuck to every part of your
freckled skin.
I am grain,
fleshed
and barren,
biting into soft bread.
Side-by-side
bare feet,
sunkissed, and steered by fate.
Sometimes, the peppers are too
hot.
Sometimes, I pull them off.
Sometimes, I kiss you and don’t even think
about it.
Don’t think about the
figures.
Refuse to calculate
the trajectory of alternate affections.
It is simple; you stay
steering me steadily
forward.

bellied

Conch shell bellied in tree limb.
Forgotten between the bend of limb and trunk,
a kiss against the glow of ambient others; wraps around—gentle, present.
Sets of initials engraved indelibly in the varicolor,
whispers from the enthralled—
Bellying; a doomed kiss,
an action somewhere between cradling and swallowing.
Conch shell cradled in the tree’s crook, edges enveloped by silver skin.
The tree, wishing to be whole, holds fast.
Now the shell sits at the center—
shining, dug deep, hammered tight, still humming
with the memory of every wave it’s ever known.

Charlie Waddle is a poet and photographer currently living in Washington, D.C. Her poetry has been published in Heavy Feather Review, and featured on Is There Another Language?, a compilation album for the ACLU.

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