Today's poem is by Melissa Eleftherion

gutter maps
       

ocean ellipsis mouth
we catch ourselves
a grumble in the time gap
maw's energetic swallow
her beast, her quickening

where were all the murderous
bowlegged dangers i avoided
rollerskating down Mermaid Avenue
back when tides washed the back legs of youth's agency

there in the subatomic catacomb
an organism of prisms
sold in the back junk shops
i washed my poverty in anonymous
erotic paperbacks i washed
my ideas about poverty through
the camera's ground glass

the smiling was a circle
i swung to - the sun
beat the boardwalk and its
nostalgic catastrophe of magics
a map of gaslight gutter
rainbows i followed to the sea

Copyright © 2025 Melissa Eleftherion All rights reserved
from Gutter Rainbows
Querencia Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission