Dead Reckoning

(After Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach)

Listen —
Do you hear
the shred of pebbles
that the waves pull

and throw, the slow
trembling progress,
the eternal comment
of sadness

from this distant sea?
Ah, love,
let’s be plain here —
There is no one

another to be true to —
We have long
retreated from this bare
year: A bleached

sail furled
on a broken
mast navigating
the darkling winds.

Adrift in waters
that no longer feel
the tug
of the sun.

Victoria Nordlund’s poetry collection Binge Watching Winter on Mute was published by Main Street Rag in June 2019. She is a Best of the Net and 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee whose work has appeared in PANK Magazine, Rust+Moth, Chestnut Review, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com