A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
Herring Gut
We held her hand until the ocean took it.
Down where the old insomniac lighthouse
delimits dawn, and Earth’s striated veins
paint igneous swaths of mineral love,
her ashes were decanted to the tides.
She marbleized the waters with her yeast
then metamorphosed in the traceless depths.
A cube of sugar in a glass of tea
dissolves less perfectly than a woman
whose children have exacted her final wish.
Time swims backwards: human, animal, fish.
Marc Alan Di Martino
Marc Alan Di Martino is the author of the collections Still Life with City (Pski's Porch, 2022) and Unburial (Kelsay, 2019). His poems and translations appear in Cider Press Review, Pulsebeat, Rattle, THINK, West Review, and many other journals and anthologies. His work has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His translation Day Lasts Forever: Selected Poems of Mario dell'Arco will be published by World Poetry Books in 2024. He lives in Italy.
