by Don Hogle
I have put the sea in a cup
(or something not unlike the sea),
rolled it around in the back of my throat
and spit it out like Poseidon, tempestuously.
I have drunk liquids in quantities equivalent
to several seas combined: your Black,
your Sargasso and your of Cortez.
I have strangled a hen, boiled it, and supped
on that liquid, too. Garlic hangs in garlands
in the bedroom. I have slept long hours.
I have felt really bad
for myself.
Don’t ask me what brought relief
and what didn’t; I don’t know.
I’m standing on my feet, am I not?
and I speak to you in whole sentences,
even if I don’t kiss you just yet.
Don Hogle was the winner of the 2016 Hayden’s Ferry Review poetry contest as selected by Alberto Rios and a finalist in the 2015 Northern Colorado Writers and Aesthetica Creative Writing contests. Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Chautauqua, Mud Season Review, Minetta Review, Blast Furnace, New Verse News, Shooter, and A3 Review in the U.K. among others. Born in Toledo, Ohio, he lives now in Manhattan.