When It’s Time to Turn Around

When It’s Time to Turn Around

Blake Petteway

In the dull shade of condominiums,
You still carved out the shadow of a gull
Crawling up the dune like a child crawls
Into his parents’ bed after the tolling of fright—

And the freighter fumbling on the horizon
Like an inchworm gentle enough
To present on the stage of your index—

There’s a buoy buried beneath you on this beach,
Blown in by the rope-pull of wind,
The curtain-call of angered clouds,
The foghorn jolt of a bad dream—

A cringe caps the muscles of your face,
A swell of mint and black peppercorn;
You smell it and think why I’ll sit here a minute—

Those cherry seeds you spit get carried off
By clumsy gulls or get swallowed
By the gullet of a sand crab’s cave,
Sucked down into the womb of seafloor,

One day to sprout on the deck of your lip,
But for now, you need only close those tired eyes,
Listen for the whimper of an open quill.

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Blake Petteway
Poet & Student

Blake is a writer from High Springs, FL. He is a current English student at North Greenville University and editor for The Mountain Laurel, in which his works have appeared and received distinctions. 

Photography by Anas Hinde