theyre refilling the shoreline down at the coast

and that girl i don't know anymore, called

and i stilled myself, to watch

as it rang out.

and theres a crumpled baby bunny

at the edge of bloody asphalt, speed limit: 25

it's arms splayed haphazard, it's invited back in

by swarms of love,

humming in f key.

and it is our love, or courtesy, maybe,

that makes us swerve to spare

flashing glimpses

of crashing tires,

and a trip to where , we aren't sure

if there are dewy morning forests

with apples rusted muted orange

chucked in for them to find

and there are people in places ,downstream, past the bend,

(where i found that blackened mermaid purse

and held it in my hands,

gently.

careful to not crunch any part of what the sea entrusted to me)

where they will painstakingly preserve

a totem of life

with naive discomforted love.

and for hours the body will be

prepared, before ultimately, inhumed,

under cool earthy fields, where in far gone days

its duty, were to warmly coalesce

now molts its soft layers, over white satin pillows,

and through the lining of a tailored suit

where eventually the flesh, the muscle, and tallow will settle:

a puddle

to swim back out to the earth outside

through white sand, his knuckles carving a trail

the waves rush in to erase. Because the city

beyond the shore is no longer

where we left it. Because the bombed

cathedral is now a cathedral

of trees. I kneel beside him to see how far

I might sink. Do you know who I am,

Ba? But the answer never comes. The answer

is the bullet hole in his back, brimming

with seawater. He is so still I think

he could be anyone's father, found

the way a green bottle might appear at

a boy's feet containing a year

he has never touched. I touch

his ears. No use. I turn him

over. To face it. The cathedral

in his sea-black eyes. The face

not mine -- but one I will wear

to kiss all my lovers good-night:

the way I seal my father's lips

with my own & begin

no matter how many times our knees

kiss the pavement. Ocean,

are you listening? The most beautiful part

of your body is wherever

your mother's shadow falls.

Here's the house with childhood

whittled down to a single red trip wire.

Don't worry. Just call it horizon

& you'll never reach it.

Here's today. Jump. I promise it's not

a lifeboat. Here's the man

whose arms are wide enough to gather

your leaving. & here the moment,

just after the lights go out, when you can still see

the faint torch between his legs.

How you use it again & again

to find your own hands.

You asked for a second chance

& are given a mouth to empty out of.

Don't be afraid, the gunfire

is only the sound of people

trying to live a little longer

& failing. Ocean. Ocean —

get up. The most beautiful part of your body

is where it's headed. & remember,

loneliness is still time spent

with the world. Here's

the room with everyone in it.

Your dead friends passing

through you like wind

through a wind chime. Here's a desk

with the gimp leg & a brick

to make it last. Yes, here's a room

so warm & blood-close,

I swear, you will wake —

& mistake these walls

for skin.

One beside another—brothers

Seven diviners

of what lies beyond the truths we have uncovered.

One makes three, then four, then more

until we move beyond mere numbers.

There is thunder over the city tonight

and of the million hearts we may never see

here in the circle we make commitments

we push the limits of earthly loving.

Electricity visits again,

and the black skies pulse with light—

currents of power by some capillary action.

Sons kiss their fathers.

Sons kiss their fathers to sleep

and the rose-eyed boy remembers himself again.

We are not the sons they ordered

with their patriotic dreaming.

We are not the sons they expected to come down the line.

But we unfold

beyond such kind paternal ignorance.

We unfold within the measure of our time.

And we make peace with the fathers inside of us.

And we give birth to a hidden, long-carried joy within.

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