Rob Colgate
Gills Rock
I drift out
to the middle
in a pink tube;
something dead stays
stuck to me even here.
One hundred separate
screams fly out
of wooden boards.
A tin boat groans
against its mooring
and I hear myself
in the creak. Waves
push me into orbit,
spinning big circles
like the earth.
Dizzy collapse
down to the floor –
an overhead light,
or the moon.
Spackle stars
flaking off.
Earlier in the kitchen
my sister shouted
over whiskey gingers –
“Why don’t you
send him a postcard,
you said you loved
him, you said that
right to my face
just now.”
I’m only so brave
underwater. Every lake
needs a home. Every drop
of water is looking
for the next time around.
I say anything
and it gets caught
in the muck
where the small fish
swim. You’re a comet.
I’m the splash
on the surface. Something
in the water – an emptiness,
or bruises where I dragged
you into the lake with me.
A moment
and then the light
swims towards home.
Rob Colgate is student at the New Writers Project. His first chapbook, So Dark the Gap, is forthcoming from Tammy Press in early 2020.