(for alexia) the atlantic was born today & i’ll tell you how the tide twisted into mockingbirds a lithograph of the carolina coast sculpted the moon into a fine blade sharpened dogwoods into a funeral of hands its flowers bloomed like a crown of thorns my lover dug her toes into morning when she stood along dead carcasses of bull kelp & saline seashells shaped like crucifixes i thought of her small like the throbbing bulb of a buoy cauterizing the open gap in the ocean’s teeth waving at freight ships leaving for europe at night i used to rest my head on my pillow & i dreamt i could hear our future child breathing beneath her chest the sounds like cardinals hitting every edge of every telephone wire she held her hands up to the sky for a long distance baptism each finger cracking like a grandfather clock & that eternity felt like an oblivion & all i could hear was water i need you so much closer so come on come on

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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