the tide rises, the tide falls | an oceanic literary magazine
Water Into Wine
by
Erich von Hungen
Morning tide and I am drunk,
already drunk and unsteady.
Waves champagne and froth,
they hiss their whisper up my feet, ankles, thighs.
The bubbles cling, burst, return again.
They rise and fling, they mesmerize.
Sssss.
This is our secret.
Sssss. Sssss.
Do you see?
Surely,
Surely you understand when we speak it.
Drunk on salt
flung like wedding rice.
Drunk on water.
Drunk on the wearing and the carrying of it,
the smell and the whisper of it,
the casting out and up,
the generosity of it.
Drunk on its taking me,
and its making me a part of it.
Drunk with the celebration,
the froth and champagning of it.
Drunk and repeating
across the stones and sand,
through the exultant, rejoicing light,
Sssss.
Sssss, as if it were everything,
the only thing to say.
Sssss. Sssss. Sssss.
Drunk and happy to be
just a particle, a bit of the lees,
just a sparkle in this wine.
Sssss. Sssss.
Morning tide,
but drunk, now,
drunk, now, all the time.
Erich von Hungen currently lives in San Francisco. His writing has appeared in The Colorado Quarterly, The Write Launch, From Whispers To Roars, and others. He has recently launched two collections of poems "In Spite Of Contagion" and "Kisses".