The sea is all odds
and no even. Mid-Atlantic,
there's no break
in the action.
But on the page in your lap,
caesuras and stanzas
break salty and deep.
Words swim in the cold
friendless voiid, oddly
finned. In a nightmare
a sailor scoops up
your wife and vanishes.
Remember when land's end
seemed spectacular,
romantic, extreme?
Out there only your bed
has the quality of land,
a parking lot
for jangled joints.
The waves' popcorn
overflows. And the freighter,
a floating nation,
seems an inversion
of expansion. It sails
beneath the flag
of your green eyes.
The books you brought
are useless: written
in a land language,
they cannot sing the sea's
high C's. In a few days
Antwerp will warp
from the horizon, a rip
in this newfangled
cosmic seam. When you take
your first step on shore,
dear friend,
do a riff on Lot's wife:
in this variation,
your last look back
renders you not a pillar
but the embodiment
of a wave, endlessly
gathering, cresting.