how we can be made out of stone
or resemble an ancient coastline...
in the blink of the brightness,
look at the land around us, how the sky
gets to us, height and distance —
there’s so much to be desired,
it’s like drowning:
the regret of drowning
is the loss
of a narrow escape,
as men can do,
lying out in the sun
when they’ve been drinking
and the light on the current
is a line between us and the unreachable:
when we sleep on the beach,
we do so out of faith,
in our dreams we believe
in the chance to escape,
to be pushed off into
nothing like a bird, a flying fish
gulping, an undertow around
each ankle, an angel,
a welder on a bridge
we float under
waving.
(published in Grand Street 54, Fall 1995)
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