Rae Spencer

Feeling Loss

It might feel cold

Like the open ocean
Where cold rays
Cast their semen and eggs
Into vast seas
And do no pause to dwell
On species
Or the fate of genes

Or any other clutch
Of dry, reptilian lust
Chemical attractants
And the scrape of scale
Need coiled around instinct
Cold fusion
Where there is no heat

Or it might feel empty

Absence of weight and form
A floating motion
Without memory of soaring
Brief puff of spore
All conceivable futures
Condensed
Into a mote of dust

Arms closing around air
In blank embrace
Filled with empty memory
A boundless sigh
As the ghost of passion
Slips away
Upon the changing tide

Photos taken at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center