On this dishonored, this perverted globe
we go back to the sea and the sea opens for us.
It spreads a comforting green we knew when children—
celery—Wesson Oil can—through islands. It flares
fresh immediate blue beyond the world’s edge
where dreams turn back defeated and the child weeps
replaying some initial loss. Whatever it does for us
it is resolute, even when it imitates sad grasses
on the inland plains and gulls are vultures overhead
hidden in the bewildering glare.
Aches of what we wanted to be and reluctantly are
play out in the wash, wash up the sand and die
and slip back placid to the crashing source.
The sea releases our rage. Logs fly over
the seawall and crush the homes of mean neighbors.
Our home, too. The sea makes fun of what we are
and we laugh beside our fire, seeing our worst selves
amplified in space and wave. We are absurd.
And sea comes knocking again in six hours. The sea
comes knocking again. Out there, salmon batter
candlefish senseless for dinner. The trailer flashes
his dodger through the salmon school. The sky widens
in answer to claustrophobic prayer. The sea believes us
when we sing: we knew no wrong high back in the mountains
where lost men shred their clothes the last days
of delirium and die from white exposure. We found one
sitting erect, his back against the stars, and even dead
he begged us to take him west to the shore of the sea.