The streak of sun
through slat. The slap
of brine. Sharp mollusks
dug deep. How love
stays calm. The plates,
hunkering through storm,
stacked up. How water
rises to fill
the tureen of bay
to brim. The queen
and knight squared off.
Slow draw. This palm,
in yours, will cup
a sea or salt,
shell welded to sand.
How sun arcs, crowns:
dashed gem- stone sheet,
bracelet of wave.
Where the leopard shark’s two-
chambered heart hammers,
neighboring skeins of brant geese
doze on the gray-sheet slate,
the punctuated white
of their tails flick the sun,
citizens of the sheen
floating, while the stockbrokers
dial quick calls and the judges
elsewhere pummel their gavels.
In eel grass herring eggs
quiver. A newscaster
announces: Reindeer herders
stumble upon colossal
craters in permafrost.
Our cottage, cantilevered
above a strike-slip fault,
hovers above the estuary.
I watch a lone brant dive
where shells lie open, cracked.
This tendency to drift.