Sardines
︎︎︎ Spencer Brown
︎ MAY 7, 2022
A constant dynamo of cars on the road.
Close your eyes, it sounds like the sea sounds.
Again, I ask my wife what she’d like for dinner.
Nothing, she says. No appetite.
I pull open a can of sardines for me and my son.
The house smells like the blue belly of the sea.
The house is too big or too small
Depending on the hour and angle of the sun.
At times, we’re packed in like fish.
At times, we’re adrift like fish.
To be a fish and not exist for a moment.
But the highway wakes us too soon.
The highway or the sea.
My wife sits on the sofa, eating sardines underwater.
Between us, everything loose is traveling.
Close your eyes, it sounds like the sea sounds.
Again, I ask my wife what she’d like for dinner.
Nothing, she says. No appetite.
I pull open a can of sardines for me and my son.
The house smells like the blue belly of the sea.
The house is too big or too small
Depending on the hour and angle of the sun.
At times, we’re packed in like fish.
At times, we’re adrift like fish.
To be a fish and not exist for a moment.
But the highway wakes us too soon.
The highway or the sea.
My wife sits on the sofa, eating sardines underwater.
Between us, everything loose is traveling.
Spencer Brown is a poet who lives in North Carolina with his wife and son. He’s the author of the novels MOVE OVER MOUNTAIN (2019) and HOLD FAST (fall 2022). You can find him at @spencerkmbrown.