Bioluminescence

Poetry
Written by Pamela Wax
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Listen to “Bioluminescence” by Pamela Wax
Pamela Wax

When my husband says divorce, 
I start decorating the interior 
of my cardboard tent, stock 
it with cans of SpaghettiOs 
and Bumble Bee (flip-topped), 
re-do my hair into a wild Einstein 
without the Nobel or any theories 
about relativity—
so when I hear him say 
incompatibility, I’m already mixing 
oil with water until an unctuous coat 
lays flat in the missionary position, 
smothering me below deck 
where I peer out a porthole
at the infinite deep— 
all those sea creatures 
emitting their own light—
to find an octopus, flexing its limbs, 
who also prefers to live alone.

Pamela Wax

Pamela Wax is the author of Walking the Labyrinth (Main Street Rag, 2022) and Starter Mothers (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Her poems have received two Best of the Net nominations and awards from Crosswinds, Paterson Literary Review, Poets’ Billow, Oberon, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House. Other publications include Barrow Street, Tupelo Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Chautauqua, The MacGuffin, Nimrod, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Slippery Elm. An ordained rabbi, Pam works at a synagogue as an adult educator, in addition to offering spirituality and poetry workshops online and around the country. She lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts.

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