It is true that the drowned return to us.
In the blue eyes of children we see them,
in a slight eccentricity of gait.
They spring actively out of the water, seeming
smaller than they were, bearing
large smiles, corn-coloured crowns.
Where the rocks are and the crabs manipulate
their bodies like toy tanks
in waters green and teeming like soup
they arise, clear-winged, articulating
sons and grandsons of themselves, stumpy
authentic chimes,
echoes, reflections, shadowy
waves that speak through the new waves,
underwritings, palimpsests,
a ghost literature behind another one,
carbons that have faint imprints on them,
blue veils of a fresh breeze.