Porch Rail by Carol Lynne Knight

— after the British TV series “Luther”

If I go missing,
if I am accused, perhaps guilty —
send DCI John Luther
to find me.

I have escaped like a cat
balancing on the porch rail,
threading thru the bayside grass,
unkempt, almost wild,
slipping into the water
beneath the mullet fisher’s net.

The sun — a quiet lemon squeezing
over the long low bridge to my island.
I am prey, like the mourning dove,
nesting under clacking palmetto fronds,
quietly jittering thru the sedge.
Follow me across the bay,
thru the tidal marshes, into the open Gulf.
Become a sting ray, become my shark.
We will consume the freedom
escape offers, and then rescinds.

Follow me into rough waters —
no longer suffer the confusions
of deceitful living — for we all are guilty,
all accused, all victims of the urban landslide —
watching others fall as if we pushed them,
pushing them as if they will fall and keep falling
while we peer over the rail, sweating, losing grace.

When he finds me, I will be floating
under the sky’s slate pallor —
bay swallowing the weathered, listing docks,
the lights on the bridge smudged with fog,
the sough of calm seas
knived with white caps.
cleaved by rain.

# # #

Carol Lynne Knight is the co-director of Anhinga Press, where she edits and designs books. She has worked on more than 100 literary publications, including books by Naomi Shihab Nye, Diane Wakoski, and the late Robert Dana and Judith Kitchen. 

Her book of poems, Quantum Entanglement (Apalachee Press) was released in 2010. Her poetry has appeared in The Ledge, Slipstream, Broome Review, Comstock Review, Epicenter, Redactions, So to Speak , and Another Chicago Magazine.

Photo Bryan Minear