And all the waves are lapping at the seabed, soft cheek and thigh

and belly fat of sand. They take quiet sips, flush and full with

stinging roughness, flush against the coolness of the cat-tongued

shore.

And there they cradle me, pea-hen gently, my hairline oiled

and slicked with salt. Light as a breath, I slip between the layers,

folding like a doll, or a cut of cloth.

And so the tide unfurls me along its swells, pulling my weft

by the tail of its crest. It tarries at the breakers, leaving me

to settle in an eddie.

And in the swirls I wane, ’til I am just a crescent lid half shut

against the sunlight. My tip toes are scummy with the sea, my

eyelids too, cut by every knuckle that mares the sea edge, by every

barnacle and stone,

by every hook and trawler.

​

I float so long that even a fresh cup of water would taste

sweet, I float so long that the boundaries of skin fade to

nothing.

And the sea has many teeth, far more than I. But if we are one

then I have all the same teeth as the sea, then it has all the same teeth

as I.

And my skin is its skin, my warmth is its warmth, I am a satellite

just caught up in some greater thing, swelled by the protruding

veins of moonlight, pulled and culled.

There is no need to reach, not to move or touch. I already know Sicily

and Guinea and Seychelles, I already know Trinidad and

Denmark and Sandwich.

I inhale, and stretch through the Ganges, through deltas

through Delaware, the Amazon and Hudson.

I know each canal, all my valves, opened, closing

and closing my eyes, let me sink.