Mariner’s Widow Poem by Kelly Vinal

And the ocean is breathed -
One bereft - a wave, followed
By another, followed -
Men, lost, this mortal firmament,
Snapped by ropes of billowed sails -
Oil, relic, flesh and bible,
Swallowed whole in tumult
- Jonah, Noah -
Gales blow, one infidelity rips away
Laterally, followed
By another, followed -
Until the bones
A torn photograph floats with wood
In the rippling dawn

And she sits upon volcanic stone,
Where her children hid and sought -
Awaiting their return