Face the drowned girl, whose fighting limbs and breath
the profound wave silenced with cool images:
Look, here’s the first round world, equipped with warmth
and a wise nipple knowing your needs. See next
a million children hard at play; your feet
the fastest, your fist triumphant, your fingers thieving
bright apples from their counterpoint of leaves.
“See here,” said the wave, and urged her dreaming body
down surging stairs of gloom deepward; “I divulge
the bee-stretched flower, the honey winging home,
a singing dot in the pure silences.”
And so, corrupted by the dear story, her heart
gave over its rhythm to the sea’s monody. She gave
her white body for a chord in the dirge of herself
and twice reclimbed the cloudy stair for ecstasy
of slow descent through failures and desires.
No push of pulse, no battle in the blood
finally disturbed the saline melody
when last the swell through dissonance of surf
bore her, loose-fingered and with heavy hair,
to resolution on the empty shore.
O listen for the notes, the last white chord
struck trailing on the sand, before it brings
the curious and the screams; face the drowned girl
before the blanket comes, and the grave men.