Brian H. Appleton

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Beneath the thundering sea at the bottom of the ocean
you'll find me sitting with my back to the shore
looking out into a wall of glasslike blue
... watching the dolphins swim past
those summers spent on
Capraia of my youth
that prison island
where rabbit
warrens
out
numbered
man and startled
birds shot up into the wind
then closed their wings to fall back
into the brambles a few yards back like it never
happened in a flash easily missed if one weren't looking
one day two escaped convicts stopped me on the hilltop pass
and asked me some directions into town, I knew what they were
but unafraid I showed them the road and away they went and took
the hydrofoil into the arms of the waiting police on the mainland
just like life, when we are one step away from freedom it gets
ripped away from us to keep us humble like crabs in a pot