Ocean Sound
I left the mountains for ocean
sound. Every year I do this, chasing a childhood
glimpse so bright
and terrible it wakes me still, sends me
to pace across damp
earth breathing in stars until it calls again
with gill-leap otter-slip seastar-grip
I find myself ankling in its stony slide
shoulders so worried-smooth I
mistake them for
my own. What is it
that tugs from its depths with faces
so fearfully familiar
barnacle-fingered kelp-wrapped shell-cracked
just like
yet not like this ungainly bone-propped-up sack
wading me toward a briny pull
so feathered it runs
on silver feet through my hands
while oyster-catch whale-breach cliff-reach
the breath in my throat it flies
low over water
wind-whipped into clouds that repeat
inside-inside-inside-inside the sea swells
inside your heart
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