Apart from the sea we have the weather
in common, but the morning moves on
like a dunlin, precarious, stilt-walking
on her own reflection. A steamer’s vapour
has collapsed on itself over the ocean.
Someone is dozing beneath the low planking
of the jetty. He knows that tomorrow
the mist will deepen, again it will snow,
the sky will come with something like hail.
Meanwhile, he has a worm-ridden bed
for sleep. Meanwhile, fishermen sling nets
from the rounded bay where a single sail
slows to a cloud. The nets come up empty.
The grass is marram grass and the sand, sand.
These are facts that hang on everything.
Beyond the heath are meadows that send
entire crops to the big city. Everything hinges
on this; any sign of life is the weather breathing.
After the meadows and steppes, the Volga.
River, I thought I’d mislaid you like a mirror.
For days I didn’t belong to your shoreline
until I drank you down, felt your sharp tongue
etch on my voice a clear voice of water.
No mention of your tide’s slow censoring;
anything can happen, and everything.