words fail
Eric Marin
]
Current Issue:
Triskaidekaphobia
Issue 13:
Variables
The Barrow Man
Pan de Oro
Flash
Erin and the Dinosaurs
Poetry
words fail
Untitled scifaiku
& I imagine the end of the world
a guest editorial
Fiction
by Matthew Cheney
by Lisa Batya Feld
by J. Stern
by Jon Hansen
by Eric Marin
by Tim Jamieson
by Peter Roberts
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z
beneath the weight of her latest
fishhook comments
warm memories
of courting by the sea
deflate from hundreds of sea urchin pricks
pain like nothing
he has experienced
in a thousand years
warnings by his selkie kin
echoing seal barks
mortal women
are polar bears
white
warm
soft
but deadly to the soul
more pointed words
slip into his skin
to draw out
the final dregs
of love
from his
desiccated heart
she asks
him a question
that clings to the frigid air
like a tongue
stuck to an icy rock
betrayal and sadness
squeeze all of the air
from his lungs
he has no response
to give
no tears to feed her spite
words
fail him
just as she has
he walks away
and slips into the
cool cove waters
never again
will he love
a mortal woman
he will stay a seal
and think
seal thoughts
and live a seal life
until he can
bear to take
human form
again
]
Eric Marin is a lawyer by day and a writer by night. He also publishes the speculative fiction and poetry webzine, Lone Star Stories.