The Repose of Starfish

Why has a giant starfish
stranded itself in a riverbed?
Orange flesh tough as neoprene,
a sprawl as big as a manifold,
it would be easy prey for dogs
or eager children, so I pluck it
into a tubful of saline wash.

The repose of starfish always
has impressed me. Tidepools brim
with their strict geometry. Stuck
to pilings, they’re subversive enough
to cancel the collective memory
we humans tote in our psyches
like purses of silver coins.

I would trade every book I own
to glimpse the universal
starfish instinct lit within
that numb and rubbery form.
Such greedy suction prying
into shells. Such a nursing
of evolutionary despair.

The sulfur tint the creature
assumes, wet in my plastic tub,
suggests it’s about to speak aloud
with atonal fervor too low
for the human ear to process.
It will either thank or curse me
for imposing a world on its world.

But tomorrow when I drive fifty
miles to the sea and place it
in a mellow splash of tidepool
it will lavish like good jewelry
and maybe remember me later
when only the instincts matter
as the planet makes a fist.

---

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has published three critical
studies. His poetry has appeared in many journals. He has taught writing and literature at
Emerson, Goddard, Boston University, and Keene State College. His new poetry
collection is A Black River, A Dark Fall (Splash of Red, 2018).