I AM IN HERE

I am in here.

Hidden behind 

layers of  paint 

the pentimento 

of this poem

still longing to be seen

I am in here.

A message in a bottle

cast into the very same sea

That I used to swim in

uncorked

Like a pliant pollywog

In between 

My father’s patient bowed legs

At the salty,

Shell-slathered edges of a once upon a time

Atlantic shoreline.

I am in here.

Sending out signals

drawing hieroglyphics 

writing in the mystical code of

The carefully selected word

Which are like doe-eyed dogs

In a kennel 

who speak in 

the universal sign language of 

The desperately waving tail

Aching to be loved.

and pleading to be taken home.