THE HUM OF FAN BLADES

We lie in the narrow boat of our bed.
Our anchor is part longing, part bitterness. 

If there is a moon tonight I cannot hear it. The hum
of fan blades slices my breath

while next to me your body jerks 
as some force pulls you like a rope
into sleep. 

We rise like ghosts along a trail of wet leaves
opening to a broad and empty sky 
where we find the white beach wiped 
completely clean.

My sounds are: 
long lapping of the ocean,
a vibrating fan that strums the underside of my mind.
Warm breeze blowing across vacant shore. 

I wanted there to be a hermit crab in this poem, 
dragging a paper thin shell so slowly over sand
we only hear its friction in our absolute stillness.

Mark Robinson earned his MFA from Lindenwood University and studied English Literature at the University of Iowa. His poems have appeared in Faultline Journal, River! River!, Exterminating Angel Press, Stillwater Review, Dunes Review, Naugatuck River Review, Levee Magazine, and Bending Genres, among others. He was a semi-finalist for Crab Creek Review’s 2020 poetry contest, and his chapbook Just Last Days was published in January 2020. Mark currently lives in West Des Moines, IA. Twitter: @MarkRobPoet