A librarian living by the banks of the Connecticut River in Springfield, Massachusetts, Thomas O’Connell’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in Jellyfish Review, Blink-ink, Your Impossible Voice, Live Nude Poems, Hobart, and The Los Angeles Review, as well as other print and online journals.

What Tides Do

There were articles in the local newspapers about the erosion of the coastline with quotes by somebody from the Army Corps of Engineers and Skip Miller, who runs the local party fishing boats, “That’s what tides do. They come in, they go out.”

Longtime residents, encountering each other while out walking their dogs, bemoan about the cut of the shoreline and how little beach there is anymore. The dunes seem to have up and left, followed by the residents whose beach houses are now much too close to the encroaching waterline.

The incoming tide approaches, cautiously at first, with hesitation for nothing is above feeling the wonder of the new. It timidly rises up the wooden back steps that overlook the impotent jetty and then continues on into the screened porch before entering the house. The tide flows into the living room, soaking the oval braided rug beneath the glass topped coffee table made out of retrieved lobster traps, before moving over to the staircase. There, the tide gazes up the stairs, wondering whether the beds have been made. Part of the tide, branching off towards the couch, rises up onto the floral cushions, casually glancing at the bookcase and reaching over to pick out a Stephen King novel from one of the lower shelves. Another part moves into the kitchen, swirling around the dense legs of the dining table and accompanying chairs before moving over to the bulky refrigerator, where various cartoons clipped from magazines and an obsolete tide chart are held fast to the freezer door by magnets. When the tide reaches the cupboards, it rises up onto the countertop, encircling the sink and pushing aside the scrap bag distended by tea bags and a few parched lemon slices.

Looking down into the stainless steel sink, and seeing the dirty breakfast dishes stacked hastily within, the tide pauses and is pulled away by something (the moon?), retreating across the marbleized linoleum floor and moving back into the living room. The soggy paperback gets tossed onto the coffee table, above a plastic lobster placed humorously among the trap’s netting, and the rest of the tide-parts gather together. Water cascades down the staircase carrying dirty beach towels aloft in its swell, eventually dropping them in the middle of the living room floor as the gathered tide recedes out through the sliding screen door, across the floorboards of the porch, and out into the waiting basin.