Tonight I want the ocean, its thick breath lapping
up against my body. I want the muscles of the waves
carrying me down into whole prairies of kelp and coral.
If for some reason the sea should be sleeping,
I want to wake it with my bones clamoring
in the cold, my hair stroking its sides,
my sighs escaping through its beaded skin.
I sought the desert because it opened like an evening
oyster revealing sticky amber pearls. It's true:
it was as sort of sea swept by sand.
I ravished mountains: their damp labyrinths
of oaks and firs. Moss roses unravelled in my hair,
charred pinon chaffed my cheeks. It was ugly; so I left.
I tried men, smoke, drink, and drives,
women, work, dresses and dreams
but I couldn't escape the feverish fix
of the sea's tongue upon the shore,
the abrupt shudder of a wave slapping sand.
I want open-palmed skies. Generous horizons,
lagoons of gulls. Not fixed lights against this
neon dusk, but beacons swellling in siren's songs.
So I call the moans of lighthouses.
I call the flame of Western suns.
I call drift wood rot, oil rig slicks,
quarantined beaches thick with sludge
and the deepest burns my body can stand.
Even if no more but this --
if it is given, it will be mine,
and I will call it mine.
1991
Monday, March 05, 2007
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