Wynken, Blynken & Nod
By Courtney Druz

I lived for years in a saturated world;
I tiptoed downstairs past the banister’s shadow harp.
Its music seeped out, its players moved
through portals of sodium light
beamed on the bedroom wall.

I did not cast those nets—
the nodding dream fisherman’s hands
were not in that song, only eyes and head.
My small hands lay beside my head,
clenching empty on the pillow.

Every waking is terrible.
What you find   will hold you;
what you cast     will spell you.

When I learned to throw the net
I smiled, I cast;
I caught many fish
but I could not eat them,
nor could I sell.
Years of fish, my stars in a net,
the stench in the boat, the endless motion,
the sea below me emptying its flocks.

I dried them all in their salt.
We could eat for years now
if the sea were dew for their thirst.

A former architect and graphic designer, Courtney Druz now spends her time as a mother of three and poet in New Jersey. Her poems have most recently appeared in Entelechy: Mind & Culture, The Other Journal, and New Vilna Review, and are forthcoming in Zeek. She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Brown University and a M.Arch. from the University of Pennsylvania.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com