Atlantic

press the light in my hand so it blisters
and put your foot to pebble path till you've done run
the chipped concrete walk through wind-stripped cinder walls
to the beach,
where sit a bruised blue sky and whale bones the sea leaves us

descend to the roaring coast twilight,
attend the riot beach fires whose bellies
bloat of old palms bleached by mariner's drift and
pull me into the bodied circles you make when you
stand above the tideline and drag eye for torches
hung long ago at the end of the sea


write me their fable, those flames
full of lies and beach love
and the wile of salt wind that
whistles fearless over the unemptied ocean dark,

have they seen
spirits born of the Great Black Pool
make their run up our shore,
in flight or pursuit
do the lights out there burn still, to spy those bodies again

atlantic-flattened stones strafe the ceiling lights
hunting what keeps grass-roofed bungalows from old blackness,
stokes the human shuffling