You ever been eaten by the ocean? That is depression: how it comes (awful in the over-feeling) and how it leaves us starting over every time it recedes. Original Joey Poetry sublimated on laminated 3.75″ x 5.75″ poplar plywood panel (0.06″ thick). Jute string for hanging.

SHARK IN THE SHALLOWS
You splash your foam
over my shiny pebble beach
and make warm toes sink
in the cloudy surf,
twist in the seaweed;
you make grains of homes
and mountains,
melt castles into their moats
as you recede.

I am the specks
of rounded glass
you pull by the ankle
and splash through gasps
trapped and tossed
from barrel to undertow;
drag my bones
a few feet deep,
crack my flesh on the coral,
shake me
between your teeth,
and then
let go…

Set me ragged back
on the blank-canvas sand
of my beach
like you never even
wanted me.