Saltwater Testament

by Michael Stein

I will build an empire,
bathe in pluff mud and salt water,
dig myself in / a fiddler crab
with a complex route of escape

At 12 I stood before the Ark,
limestone brick jutting, towering,
I decided from now on
everything and everyone
that doesn’t serve to aid me
will be tossed away.

Become an opportunist,
ecosystem engineer,
wandering / wandering,
an egoist that provides.

Ginsberg says Be kind to yourself
I say stifle yourself,
we have trained for this moment.

At my grandmother’s funeral
I hand my mother a bag of benne wafers,
thinking about myself in the future
and what shoes I will wear tomorrow.

Michael Stein is a law student at Washington & Lee University and holds his BA in English Literature from the College of Charleston Honors College. He has been published in Sanctuary and in YNST: You’re Not Seeing ThingsMagazine, and is awaiting publication in the Tuskegee Review. He works as an editor for the Medical Literacy Initiative and is editor-emeritus for MiscellanyLiterary and Arts Journal.