by Francine Witte

Color of Martin’s eyes. He only has to look at her, and she is sailing into the ocean, sailing into the sky.

Other things about Martin that are blue. The veins in his arm when he makes a fist on those nights with too much moon.

Martin has promised not to blue her up with bruises anymore. But never mind how sober, not sober, how dark the sky can get with even a moon in it.

One night, this one, in fact, Martin has traipsed in late and boozey-blue. She, as always, looks hopeful into his deep ocean eyes and is eager to sail away. So eager that she ignores the leftover moon up above and the shark that lives in Martin, swimming straight to the surface, about to break the skin.

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Francine Witte is the author of the poetry chapbooks Only, Not Only (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and First Rain (Pecan Grove Press, 2009), winner of the Pecan Grove Press competition, and the flash fiction chapbooks Cold June (Ropewalk Press), selected by Robert Olen Butler as the winner of the 2010 Thomas A. Wilhelmus Award, and The Wind Twirls Everything (MuscleHead Press). A retired English teacher, Francine lives in New York.