Second Cousins

The night, a dark manifesto, stars in riot,

heading toward themselves and back.

Coffin-black beach, where our shadows would lie down,

if they could.

You and I, blessed only by what we want,

hunting it down, hoping it might pass,

knowing it won’t.

We’ve lived these lives, beautiful with mistakes,

certain only of that which is broken,

but tonight we know precisely

what brings us to this late shore.

Here, we are prime numbers,

divisible only by one, and ourselves,

as we listen to the breakers,

their tongues shivering toward us,

and imagine the mute fish,

silver blades darting, invisibly,

beneath un-summoned waves.

The sky, an enormous room,    

sea breathing beneath its bent ceiling,

hem of the horizon too sunken to see.

Ours’ is the lowest passageway.

Bend and buckle, warp and twist,

until we are swept still as a dune.

The tide flows.

It returns.

It never stops. 

Appeared in riverbabble,  Bloomsday Issue, #19 (2011)