Ophelia’s Last Song

Noel Sloboda

by Noel Sloboda

 

Unable to wrap
            nailless fingers around
 
this thrashing black
            fish pitched onto land
 
by a puckered mermaid
            filled with good
 
intentions and brine
            I abandon all
 
dreams of rescue
            and hum along
 
with a wordless dirge
            heavier than air.

 

Noel Sloboda is the author of the poetry collections Our Rarer Monsters (sunnyoutside, 2013) and Shell Games (sunnyoutside, 2008) as well as several chapbooks, most recently Circle Straight Back (Červená Barva Press, 2012). His work has appeared in Fourteen Hills, GiganticOther Poetry, Redactions, and Modern Language Studies. Sloboda has also published a book about Edith Wharton and Gertrude Stein. He teaches at Penn State York.