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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Sharkskin Heart

By Olivia Lee

 

glide deep beneath the gilded blue-—in

somber, slipping sweet inside

for loveliness, in secret sand

and beats, in pulsing glow and hiss—

hammerhead, slide passively

drip, your darkly hanging maw

hunger, darling, toothlit bane

quiver love in flashing jaws

from seaward, vast eternity

throbs, electric flutter-time

a hundred fish, drawn gasping in

betrays electric lateral lines

now move, in false serenity

then pant: in ever-rasping gills

but even when the deed is done

the hungry searching never stills

 

and in this gaping chest of mine

in cartilage: no bony parts

nothing, dearest, satisfies

your roving bloodless sharkskin heart.

 

Olivia Lee is a junior in the Creative Writing Conservatory at California School of the Arts – San Gabriel Valley. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Princeton University. She has work published, or forthcoming in LiveWire, Aerie International, DASH, Canvas Literary Journal, Polyphony Lit, and Body Without Organs Literary Journal, among others.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Seventeen

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