Stopping at the Chinese Grocery Store in Sanxiantai, Taiwan
There lies the sea slug—bucketed.
All foot and travel, all hungry
suck of the cave’s dusk-lung.
Forlorn-ness enlarged,
but when sunken
a shrinking under the cold
eye-white wave caps.
We’ve spent the night at
a guest house nearby.
Our eyes becoming one big blur.
A shape of sleep, the cliff
drops rocks, as in easy sleep
your foot breaks off from the bed.
Your shallow dreams follow
an alluvial thread, circling
around your brain as around
a sea anemone. We are hungry—
but not for it.
Our faces’ loose fire.
Our hair, cliff-wind-rock combed through.
Having climbed high above the sea
near Sanxiantai, we descend
to find some good seafood.
Here, at the Chinese market,
we stand and stare into the bucket,
where the eyes of the creature
are next to impossible to see.
*
Jean Voneman Mikhail is a former librarian and Composition Instructor who lives in Athens, Ohio. She has published in One Art, Gyroscope Review, New Verse News, Sheila Na Gig Online, Autumn Sky Daily and other journals and anthologies. In 2025, she was nominated for “Best of the Net” by Eucalyptus Lit.
Love your evocative descriptions, Jean! We must talk about the Taiwan connection sometime!
So good, Jean. Dreamlike and disturbing…love all the language. It’s so original and the ending is perfect.