Random Storyteller

The call of a conch shell breaks dawn’s cool twilight

When staccato bird chirps peck the brain,

Dimming sleep that wrestles arousal.

The ocean’s roar—dry and chamber-trapped in pink—

Sounds the false alarm of this trick beach souvenir

Dragged inland to dust-collect on a crooked shelf

Of cheap baubles forgotten in plain sight.

A swift rushing sweeps me cold awake

To the deafening song of I-285

Drowning out the gentle Chattahoochee.

Oh, my mother, did you paddle the river

Or cast long, slow-motion lines—ambitionless

To net a mess of sun-flashed rainbow trout?

You, the dreamer, whose river fortune I never knew,

What tunes did you hum to bankside gurgles

And brief rapids gushing white into midstream?