Poetry by T. Clear

               Alexandre Dulaunoy CC


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Our Lady of Flotsam

            O she who keeps watch
over the rubbished, the odd shoe, the cracked
crockery flung in rage, the zipper pull,  
chunks of airborne, waveborne styrofoam. 
Vigilant mother-of-pearl, of cockle & scallop. 
All ruin, all glorious sand-glinted treasure
is welcomed into her o-holy-arms.

             Tides strew a briny indulgence
at her feet. She makes incarnate the shred,
the bit, the fragment. Grants goodness
to the twist-top, the peach pit, the tangled line.
Gull beaks beseech her name, crab hulls 
praise the stones which tumble upon her strand: 
forever and ever an ocean of discard.

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T. Clear is one of the founders of Floating Bridge Press and Easy Speak Seattle. She has been writing and publishing since the late 1970’s, and her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Northwest, Sheila-na-Gig Online, The Rise-Up Review, Red Earth Review, Terrain.org, The Moth and Common Ground Review. She is an Associate Editor at Bracken Magazine, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Independent Best American Poetry Award. 

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