Slide

Ed Schad

Mud heave and lift, up to hug the footings,

brown and blue iodine black, around and through,

yellow bile and liver, pancreas wash, cage crack.

The houses down, slumping in their final chairs,

gaze out crumbled to the last phalanx of pier,

tiny joints of deck and rail, gangway and ramp,

bobbing long and lean and calm in the waves.

Ed Schad is a writer and art curator living in Los Angeles. He has published widely, including in the L.A. Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, The Blue-Collar Review, The Nonconformist, Rue Scribe, and Frieze. His first collection of poetry, Letters Apart, was published by Dopplehouse Press in 2023. @icallitoranges