Float by Maureen Seaton

This big sinking toe and its buoyant inhabitants.

When I first arrived I was shocked by two things: dinosaurs disguised as pelicans and men o’ war disguised as dead balloons.
Either way I was naïve. I thought an ocean is an ocean and since I’d married the North Atlantic at seven, what could this lukewarm lake possibly have to offer me?

Years lapped by mathematically. I was a fractal and the seasons my humid iterations.
I was predictable, the waves my loyal algorithms.

Last week I floated in the sea while a dozen gulls fought for a crust of pizza above me.
When I looked up, the crust came plummeting down along with twelve unholy birds,
like they were apostles and I was their lord.

Also: pirates and mermaids, pirates and mermaids, pirates and mermaids: they’re
real here. (Look!)

Here is my creed: Fling yourself into the ocean, for it is loaded with salt.
Float happily among the phosphorescent Floridians, their slick skin, their anemone hair.

May their tentacles forever surround you.

Maureen Seaton is the author of seventeen poetry collections, both solo and collaborative—most recently, Caprice: Collected, Uncollected, and New Collaborations, with Denise Duhamel (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). Seaton’s awards include the Iowa Prize, two Lambda Literary Awards, the Audre Lorde Award, an NEA fellowship, and the Pushcart.