Reef Lexicon

After the beach, I sink into my enameled
fossil, possibly the first clawfoot bathtub
to have crawled from the sea, and chisel
at salt crystals growing between my toes,
silk my hair with silicone, scrub every single-
celled multi-syllabled bacterium dwelling
in the top stratum of my skin, until my sponge,
once a desiccated speech bubble, froths microscopic
chatter, pores caulked with enough pleasantries
to dissolve me, like diary pages lost in a galleon
sundered on a reef, moray eels peeking from cannons,
clams manning the fo’c’sle, the figurehead’s brain coral
swallowing sunlight, spitting out the bones, the water
logging every centigrade spilled by trans-oceanic
kettles, until the corals blanch like a blank page
and their last gurgled words break against me
as I run into a wave stained with invisible ink.

Naomi Segal (22) is an artist, writer and zine-maker pursuing vulnerable forms of co-existing and -making with one another.

Matthew Wojczys (24) is a poet and technical writer. His work has appeared in Antithesis, Cordite, Rabbit and the online help for certain accounting software.

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Note: ‘Reef Lexicon’ originally appeared in Voiceworks #121 ‘Reflex’ in an earlier form of the poem than was intended. The text that appears here and in our digital edition as of April 26 is the corrected final version of the poem. You can pick up a copy of ‘Reflex’ here.