elixir of desiccation, seawater
frays the thin layers of lips offered prostrate to a jealous sun
like jellyfish spoiled to a soup on hot jetties
peeled off indelicately, raining down
as powdered glass out of quarreling beaks
the world slips under the waves
we ignore the loss: our green pedestal darkens
and the horizon curves dizzyingly
for our floating
berating as the fence
quakes with native urchins who scatter
in the practiced nightstick wave
let the sand cram no more infant folds,
crown my flimsy land-ankles in vagrant algae
grasp my knees with tendrils
bear up my webbings and lick my hollow ears
fill my caverns and make me
a tomb of fishes
Sara Fitzpatrick Comito
http://saracomito.wordpress.com
The Great Fires
Jack Gilbert