Dancing water sloshed
At the edge of gray
Slate, weary and washed
By a thousand coins, as the day
Gaped from the gap above. Broken
Floor-to-sky foundation, tired cracks.
Steady toss-chip-tumble tokens
Dug in deep. The architect’s facts
Ignored wish-fueled erosion, material
Chosen to swallow the glaring sun
Lies brittle and dry, a burial
Of whispered aspiration. One by one,
Tiles seep and shift to press
The tidal drag. Ten thousand cubic feet
Lost to ceramic distress,
Once upon a time wet and neat,
Now caged by empty glass walls
Mocked by ill-timed, temperate rain.
With dreams of glossy waterfalls
Intact in crass inscription, will it train
The eye and ear and heart
On what’s no longer within reach?
The wishing fountain wills itself a part
Of resurrection from the unintended breach
Of contact. At the center, a boat
Or a paper plane in copper, brushed.
Postmodern misdirection left to gloat
Over snap of sealants and lazy work of grouters, rushed.
Meryl McQueen is an American writer living in Sydney. Born in South Africa, she grew up in Europe and the U.S. Before turning to writing full-time, she was a social worker, counselor, college professor, researcher, and grant writer. She earned her doctorate in linguistics from the University of Technology, Sydney, her master’s in public administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her bachelor of science in education and social policy from Northwestern. Meryl speaks several languages and has lived in seven countries. She loves to play piano, sing, hike in the woods, and cook. Her poetry has been published in Blue Lake Review, Clearfield Review, Crack the Spine, The Critical Pass Review, Dunes Review, Ginosko, Ozone Park Journal, Phoebe, RiverSedge, the Set Free Anthology, The Tower Journal, Town Creek Review, Vanguard in the Belly of the Beast, and Yellow Moon.
