By Jarrett King

I’m ready to let you go.
Just drop you off a cliff
and wait for a splash or a thud,
hoping that if I squint real hard
I can see you splayed across the rocks
down below, and detect your regret
in the way your muscles spasm
quick like a reptile’s eye.
I’ll watch the sea reach out and grab you
with a gentleness that belies
the ravenous beasts beneath the foam
that will gobble you out of my existence.
Though I have a feeling
you’ve arranged to have a man in a gondola
at the bottom of the cliff, waiting.
He’ll catch you in his hairy arms
the way dads catch babies—
as if you’d fallen from a height
just higher than his fingertips.
You’ll fit perfectly in the gondola’s bottom
when he sets you down,
and as he steers you
toward the glistening distance
he’ll sing you songs in Italian
or some other language I don’t know.

 

“Salvatore” received the 2014 Timothy Green Literary Excellence Award in Poetry.

Jarrett King is an actor and writer from Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in various literary outlets, including the Sorin Oak Review and Arete. He holds a BA in Performance from St. Edward’s University, where he graduated summa cum laude, and is a certified teacher (Theatre Arts EC-12). Currently, he is a resident playwright with Penfold Theatre.

Photo by Marcos Morales