![]() Undertow
People looking at the sea, makes them feel less terrible about themselves, the sea's behaving abominably, seems never satisfied, what it throws away it dashes down then wants back, yanks back. Comparatively, thinks one vice president, what are my frauds but nudged along misunderstandings already there? I can't believe I ever worried about my betrayals, thinks the analyst benefitting facially from the sea's raged-up mist. Obviously I'm not the only one suffering an identity crisis knows the boy who wants to be a lawyer no more. Nothing can stay long, cogitates the dog, so maybe a life of fetch is not a wasted life. And the sea heaves and cleaves and seethes, shoots snot out, goes to bed only to wake shouting in the mansion of the night, pacing, pacing, making tea then spilling it, sudden outloud laughter snort, Oh what the heck, I probably drove myself crazy, thinks the sea, kissing all those strangers, forgiving them no matter what, liars in confession, vomitters of plastics and fossil fuels but what a stricken elixir I've become even to my becalmed depths, while through its head swim a million fishes seemingly made of light eating each other. From Volume 191, Number 2, November 2007 Copyright © The Poetry Foundation |