Flooded Poem by TAK Erzinger

We swallowed up the summers whole
like the pelicans, with their fish,
queuing on the pier.

Waves crashed against spindly legs
of oak and my father's reel raced
down into Black Beard's bed

and the reel whistled with a certain
admiration, flirting with the tide.
The salt air licked at our faces

curing and preserving those moments
washed up through the cracks in
our weathered memories.

We are now flooded,

divided by the Atlantic
and landlocked by circumstance.
We've forgotten how to swim.