Where I Drift
by Ann Chinnis
now, is never quiet;
cordgrass creaks with salt marsh
periwinkles. Blue crabs click
at oyster shells scrapped
on the river bank. Beyond
Calf Pasture Point, the current
belches past cattails
to Church Prong Inlet, its chime
summing the hours. In brown
shallows of Dead and Bones Cove,
I loop my boat’s line around
a loblolly pine, its bark scaling
praises to yellowed needles.
An Atlantic croaker cracks
the river’s glass for a breath
of air in August. Virginia Bluebells
croon; moth hummingbirds seduced
by their music. I breathe
a salt and sky-blue symphony.
As a girl, I caught a spot fish here
for my father. Raced it home
to him. Dredging my silvered gift
from the bucket, he shook his head.
Too small to eat, as he tossed it
into the creek. The speckled stiffness
struck the water with the sound of waves
lapping a fiberglass hull, fingers
tapping an empty bucket.
Ann Chinnis is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize 2025, two times Best of the Net nominee, semi-finalist for the Virginia Poetry Society Edgar Allan Poe Prize, and the author of two poetry chapbooks—Poppet, My Poppet and I Can Catch Anything. Her work has been published in Sky Island Journal, River Heron Review, Gyroscope, Crab Creek Review, among others. She studies at the Writers Studio with Philip Schultz. Ann is a retired Emergency Physician and a leadership coach and lives with her wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
