5 October 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 3
In the Year of the Etruscans
In the Year of the Etruscans
We moved to a saltbox
Sinking in a salt marsh.
Water black as grape must
Mirrored brackish lies.
Clouds, cranes, hay repeated themselves darkly.
My water-self opened our water-door
With a water-key, stepped across
The rippled threshold.
I loved him like salt.
His low-slung madras, clashing shirt,
Neck strung with poison berries.
The sea was somewhere else. Summer somewhere else.
We hived an almond tub,
One romantic, deadly fish.
About the author:
Claudia Burbank is the recipient of a fellowship from the state of New Jersey as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, and Borderlands.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Claudia Burbank at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 6, No. 3, where "In the Year of the Etruscans" ran on October 5, 2006. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
