I’ve been there—where you haven’t been.
In the sea at night. The spawning. This is the closest
I’ve ever come to sex.  Swimming out into the lagoon

through craters of warm and cold water. Stars above
and stars below. I am de-evolving. Going back to the sea
to the single-cell, to the spineless. 

This is home for me. Floating on my back
my arms and legs open to possibility
but only here. Call me the virgin whore.

Before the waters fill the bridge’s mouth
Before the metal cathedral liquefies
Before the bolts explode like broken elbows
Before the wind sinks into the sizzling sea
Before the sun looks us straight in the eye
And says “I told you so”
Before my purse fills up with junk
And I can’t find my keys
And the fish can’t find their gills
And the ghosts have no place left to haunt
And the rest stops are flooded with soggy French fries
And all the used water bottles will never be empty again

Again I fold my hand on the hard drum of your belly
                          You laugh, you almost let me win.
 King of Fools, first time I saw the Atlantic I was five
and on your shoulders.
                   A wave bucked and swallowed us–a salty mouth. 

Your hands, two fleshy spades and ocean silt.
Coney Island sky, a pink wail above us,
                                                        you pressing me to you.

            For the boy who said women who don’t think are more beautiful,
            then threw me over his shoulder.

i
don’t
have
a
brain. 

my
body
moves
when
the
wind
(your
ocean)
tells
it.

what’s
it
feel
like?

to
be
hammered
down? 

to
be
all
tree-leg
&
anchor?

i
go
where
my
wind
wants
me
to.

Hard up for cash, the whales began renting out their stomachs to summer vacationers. It was a novelty, staying in the belly of a whale, like the teepee-shaped motels that still exist off the highways in some parts of Arizona. The whales would come right up to the shore and allow tourists to step into their patiently opened mouths, drag wheeled suitcases and whining children over their plankton-flecked baleens.

Praise the patience of a papa penguin.
I don’t envy those dark, star-lit nights
with only the occasional blush-green
current of borealis across his claws. 

See how sweetly he holds the egg close
in his brood pouch? And I am certain
his fierce tenderness would scare
even a crabeater seal five times his size. 

What exactly does the papa penguin register
in a nighttime that lasts two whole months?
During those days of no sun, does he
remember the particular bend

Photo credit Marc Povey

“The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea.”
                                                                  —Isak Dinesen