Charles Leggett

ROMEO Y JULIETA #1

Inside: Olympic downhill skiing
cheered (and sweated through). Out here:
Shiraz, cockroaches, the generous
foreign stars; Thompson Bay
shimmering in dock lamplight; Fremantle
lighthouses blinking across a breath

of breeze. Earlier: red snapper
over greens; respectful, panicked
flight from mantra rays the size
of trench coats I have worn. Now:
sea-jangles swaying half hypnotic
atop the tide; my Buyer’s Remorse

dissolved in clumsy, drifting rings.

_{—Rottnest Island, Western Australia, February 2002}

OUT ON THE CAUSEWAY

“How ya you gowin,’ ya snot?” the fisherman drawls.
We must infer the loitering sea lion’s size
from the volumes of water displaced,
and of air, the occasional gust
erupting from just under
the surface. “Cheeky buggah.”

They’re after the very same thing.
He chortles, “Yeh, sometimes I think,
Well, I could go to the store and he can’t,
but then…” With a nod towards the bay and a grunt
he trains his affectionate glare:
“Well, he’s got an ocean out there!”

SET IN DIREST WALES

_{“The Llanddona Hoard was discovered with the aid of metal detectors on Llanddona Beach, Red Wharf Bay (Anglesey, Wales)…there is no doubt… that the coins are from a single hoard… perhaps lost accidentally by a person crossing the sands…it is easy to imagine someone being caught out by the tide and either losing their purse or possibly their life as well… given that the 3.5 mile walk… has long been used as a shortcut.” —York Coins website}

Charles Leggett is a professional actor based in Seattle, WA, and a 2022 Lunt-Fontanne Fellow. His poetry has been published in the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India and Nigeria; his chapbook Hard Listening appears in the latest Ravenna Press “Triple” series edition, No. 25. Charles’s co-adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths premiered in 2024 at Intiman Theatre with The Seagull Project, and his poetry film short To Fondle Nothing has screened as an Official Selection at film festivals in the US, the UK (Scotland and England), Portugal, Serbia, Italy, and Austria.

“Romeo y Julieta #1,” previously published in Ocotillo Review

“Out on the Causeway,” previously published in Microtext Anthology 4