Find me a new story to paint
wine-dark, where they comb metaphors
instead of beaches, where the poets are not the only ones
bursting with heartache
where men do not make pigs
of themselves, both gentle and beastly,
where all the heroes come home,
and their wives do not know fear,
where the maids, virtuous in necessity
find agency in more than their adjectives.
In which swirling whirlpool does disaster lie?
All of them—
so sort out meaning
seek out new speech.
There are other shores to adventure.
Listen, they are calling
you.
©2019 Lynne Sargent
Lynne Sargent is a writer, aerialist, and philosophy Ph.D currently studying at the University of Waterloo. You can find a complete list of her works at scribbledshadows.wordpress.com, or at venues such as Strange Horizons, Truancy, and Augur Magazine. If you want to find out more, reach out to her on Twitter @SamLynneS.