Daydreaming Aboard Bremerton Ferry

Mary Ellen Talley

A young woman taps on the table
beside wide panes of sky.    
Thrum drumming engine noise
lulls her 
as she begins to write letters underwater
where her words bubble into sea anemones
and undulating jelly fish,
her words
send messages to barnacle larvae
with a promise that symbiosis runs deep. 
She will take fledglings with her to Hawaii
if starfish remain in clusters
long enough to grant her wish
for a Navy rendezvous with her husband
on a trillion grains of white sand. Twelve sets
of Thayer’s Gull white wings slide in,
lifting, lifting
to deposit her 5,000 miles away
to a nuclear submarine galley near an atoll in the Pacific.
She and her husband float on beds of blue ink
for as long as the wise old octopus allows them
while they eat apple pie she brought for her sailor's birthday.
The couple pretends this reunion might last,
they procrastinate
while he finishes his ala mode and she signs the guest log.
She exits top to hover and rise like a dolphin
before the hiatus slams the hatch cover.
Foam of her nonfat no-whip white mocha
froths into sea spray.

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Mary Ellen Talley
Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared in many journals including Louisville Review, Deep Wild, and Trampoline as well as in multiple anthologies. Her chapbooks are: “Postcards from the Lilac City” from Finishing Line Press, “Taking Leave” from Kelsay Books, and “Infusion” online at Red Wolf Journal. She resides in Seattle, WA and worked for many years as a school-based speech/language pathologist (SLP.) Her website is www.maryellentalley.com.