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When we leave this place

I roll up my pants and
Slip my feet into gumboots,
leaving my gloves on.

It is low tide tonight, and
it’s raining. But what can you do
When the world is full of water?

I drag the boat down the beach.
Although I cannot see the river
Or the waves within it:

Blue on blue the water
Is beyond my vision.
I hear the fish jumping.

The water slides at the edges.
I can’t see the island tonight.
Surrounded by fog,

it forgets its own name, 
and the lights won’t reach it. 
 
I hear my sister’s voice


somewhere on the beach. Her
hands glowing white.


The boat glides gently


From the sand, and the oars
Splash. I row across the river
With my head torch.

Oysters

The stars fell, the earth titled,
The ocean swallowed us as it ran.
We were bound together, calcified.
We were oysters in our shells.

Protandric, we released ourselves
into the water, covered in cuts,
from holding the shredded parts
at the edges of our shells.

Pumping colourless blood
through all parts of the body,
we drew water in our gills, until
we fell, clattering to the ground.

     It’s an ocean

I am swimming

  for days

     in my bed

 lying wait

remembering

things that haven’t come yet,

  bending lines

     to fit this tune

       with a melody

     I have found yet. 

          This love whispers

      Through an ocean,

    Lying wait,

 That hasn’t formed yet.

 

Through the winter

  Binding fishtales

     To the creatures

              Telling stories

 

                 Of the fishbones

                I adore yet.

 

           Of the fishes

     And their wishes

Strung together

  In a chorus –

 

   Choral net

      Between my fingers

       Catching stars

           On the horizon

 

      As the insects

  Try to warn us

We wouldn’t go there

    Any wiser.

Gone Sailing - A Sign on the Door

Again. We lose sight of land

Amidst new structures,

On the hips of waves

As elbows rise and fall,

Turning egg whites in a bowl.

 

We are far from cities

With their bellies tucked

And bodies tight to tower

Machine-like on the skyline

Of everybody’s dreams.

 

No. We are lovers lost at sea,

Floating above the ocean

Filled with unknown creatures.

The rigging creaking in the wind

Telling stories of back home.

 

Birds of foreign landscapes

Singing hips and shoulders

As they rise and fall. Promising

Some other things

Drying here with pegs on strings. 

Sliding out with rising tide

I sat there, rock bare, and tied

like Tigerlilly in the water;

thinking how well I knew the sea

and how little good it would do me.

I learned to sail the ocean long

before I ever learned to walk it.