Jun 282010
by Simon Perchik
Before the first heart
these barnacles took hold and the sea
is still carried ashore
–it’s never full
and though there was no struggle
the waves are covered with scales
are just now learning to die
to break open, making room
for this jetty almost asleep
curled under the generous line
baymen cast to comfort tides
and the wound too old to heal
–their singleminded thread, the kind
hospitals use and on the other end
something still alive
warms my hand over hand and the wait
to take from the sea
a moon thankful for the dark
like a story at bedtime or hour after hour
the stars still safe
listening to these rocks
half stone, half underwater.
