"Portrait" by Luanne Castle

[audio m4a="http://barnstormjournal.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Portrait-Luanne-Castle.m4a"][/audio]So as a sturdy arrow, she scuds into                                                                      the trembling ocean                                                         (which absorbs then releases her in layers)and later arranges her paint pots             and the flotsam she brings back                                                                      mystified that she lets                                                         the others steal from her, as if she merely rentedkept the ledgers, fed             the crew & didn’t blink.                                                                        She plods onto wet sand, expecting                                                         froth-laced seaweed, the skitters and tiny eyeswhich linger like shadows             inside her lids.                                                                      It would be good to live fully on the brined-                                                         refuse-strewn edge of the seaor in the order             & factsclose-up clarity                                                                        sniffing the driftwood             on a foggy deck                            polishing each clam shell to reflection.Luanne Castle’s poetry and prose have appeared in Wisconsin Review, The Antigonish Review, TAB, River Teeth, Lunch Ticket, The Review Review, Redheaded Stepchild, The MacGuffin, Ducts, and many other journals. Doll God, Luanne’s first collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Aldrich Press. She has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside, and has studied English and creative writing at UCR, Western Michigan University, and the Stanford University writing certificate program. She divides her time between California and Arizona, where she shares land with a herd of javelina.