Rock Pool Room
Lizzie Purkis
for Simona
i. rock pool / room
When the tide goes out dancing
rolling itself into layers of deeper blue
I walk along the sand flats
skirt the shore’s tilting shale stacks
spot a rock pool
deep and clear as air
refreshed
by its latest infusion of sea water
its dark granite edges
drying off in the breeze.
Kneeling I watch astronaut crabs
spacewalking shadow to shadow
rock to rock lean closer
red jellied flowers dot the walls
minnows flit among
puckered fronds of seaweed.
I feel the wetness on my nose
taste salt.
To inch my body
through the waterline
grabbing a kelp holdfast
to resist buoyancy
push down and under
sweet submersion
let go— let drift—
To float away face to the sky
scattering the sun’s refracted light.
When the tide races back
the granite wall
is its first thwarting
but the swell rises higher
filling the pool
till it loses definition
in green sand-reflecting shallows
and beyond
broad swaths of purplish blue.
I picture a watery exchange
of molecules: the life outside—
orca pods finning fleet shoals of herring
merging with the life within—
rumor of mollusks memory of skin
ii. room / rock pool
Your room is a rock pool,
the tide table our schedule.
Sand-white cushions
smooth granite backrest
sea foam walls
perpetual white noise
of ocean sounds
pull me in.
My mind a kaleidoscope—
glints of sea glass
tumbling through silt.
Watery blur of odds and ends
settles to near stillness.
I pick a periwinkle shell
dainty as a teacup
its yellow mantle bleached
pale by sun or salt spray.
We pass it back and forth
study its whorls, its aperture.
Your gaze deliberate, curious,
traces the ridged growth rings.
Together we discover
how the mollusk formed its world
from the inside out.
When eye contact overwhelms
I focus on your anemone-red
wall-art or the rusty tangle
of kelp cradling your trailing plant.
I close my eyes
shell on my open palm
feel the ocean lift me
gently take back its treasure.
I can feel the sun
falling through your skylight
into my lap.
Lizzie Purkis
Lizzie Purkis is a British-born poet, who has made Chicago home. While missing the moors and dales of her native Yorkshire, she enjoys the gritty landscape of the "City of Big Shoulders." In high school she discovered that poems don't need to rhyme, thanks to a kind and persistent writing teacher. Since then, she has helped her two children to grow up and become a social worker for humans across the lifespan. Through various life stages, she has kept returning to the craft of poetry. Her poems have been published in journals on both sides of the Atlantic.