| LIGHT FROM THE
SURFACE The winter waves have stripped away the sand and left these rocks great shifted reefs of jagged black Raked countless small gray stones in somber sheets beneath the bluff I've come to ask a favor of the sea hoping she might take away my fear Embrace it as she would a drowning child sweep it fast and deep and forever along the Channel to the south They say that after the panic as light from the surface falls away it feels like drifting off to sleep This dread is well accustomed to the cold It would rest so happily in silence In springtime a fisherman in Mexico will find my fear Catch it with a snag of kelp Carry it home for his supper unawares with a small string of perch He will wake up in the night worried about something he was supposed to be Clutching his chest in the soaking dark and smelling the pitiless sea ©1994 by Kyle Kimberlin all rights reserved |
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