Broken rocks, concrete, rammy waters,
foam seeds, furls, starbursts, rosettes,
the storm inside the sea, inside out.
The crows’ dainty feet, tapping the stones,
don’t alight long enough for me to write
the complete sentence that this is.
Veil and flail churn through their changes,
like changes of heart or mind, like will
switching its passion object to object.
What else? The spindled waters look like
tight-waisted crinolines, petite, dressed
on dummies, puzzled why no body fills them out.
The voices of the dead, the soon-to-be, we children
of fortune, the unlucky and bereft, the unseen,
speaking their appeals and sorrow.
I want my young body back, its small raucous jump.
The moment mourns itself. The sea calls us
to ourselves, to loves and things gone missing.
The swells and waves in their disorder
hold and hold, a perfect authenticity, like we
who still feel so immediate, dreamed up, past.
—W. S. Di Piero
Simone Di Piero’s most recent book is Mickey Rourke and the Bluebird of Happiness: A Poet’s Notebooks.
