West Trade Review: "Before I was a man," by Zeke Shomler

Zeke Shomler

Before I was a man,

I was an ocean. Borderless,

I swirled, enveloped,

swished and sloshed and salivated,

brandishing my teeth. I spit

thick mucus in my grandma’s

rose-themed bathroom’s

creamy porcelain sink.

Only the moon

could pull me, cratered, tidal,

my satellite who does not know

the many words for shame.

I gave the world

the rain, and in return

received its salt and sediment,

its sloughed-off minerals,

its singsong bodily

refrains. Before I was

a man, I was the youngest

daughter of the youngest daughter

of the youngest daughter and then

I was a glacier, vast

and slowly drifting, indifferent

to my dim, entangled world.

Little organisms flourished

in my ice-mass. I learned to feel them

squirming as I drooped and slumped

toward valleys

like a foxhound, untethered

to the dull restraints of days.

I always swallowed sunlight

in crevasses. I sloped

across the ominous terrain.

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Image by Rozemarijn van Kampen from Pexels

Zeke Shomler is a poet and educator in Fairbanks, Alaska. A Pushcart nominee, his work has appeared in AGNI, Folio, Modern Language Studies, and elsewhere.

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