PacificPacific
I
Today I saw the willow tree,
branches written in your hair
today I saw the sea painted in your tears
today I saw sandy reaches in your skin, sable toned
a smooth gradation from white to brown close up resolved
to multifarious speckle, tiny jewelled glistenings dissolving
like the pores in your limbs, to meaningless pixilation
an overblown portrait obsessively enlarged.
II
Today, thin black wooden posts stapling together your body
your bones, the beached drifted logs tumbled together, jointed
loosely by frayed plastic rope, blue sky hazed white by sunlight
your hands, by bent rusty wire twisted in grotesque shape
beside dried out bladder-wrack, crackled and almost black
flotsam and jetsam, debris of the magnificent Pacific, dazzling
III
Today the sand grit reddened my eyes and the raven's croak confused me
the coastal tang of your skin once again, the wind whipping your hair
raising the swell of the waves, a white spray drenching everything
the rhythmic tail thud, the steady breathy blow of the grey humpback nearby
And far from sight, white against a white sky, a crane unfolded herself
above a distant tree-line; her eyes clean glass floats, tumbled
across the water through Kuroshio and Oyashio to North Pacific drift
landing on Alaskan shores, ocean green-tinged, depthless.
Published in Abridged 0-23, Desire and Dust issue. November, 2011
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