Gift, 2

J. Neil C. Garcia
keepsakes
Lost in the sea’s life leaves behind
unforgiving blue, before
I seek you. dissolving
Before me back to brine.
the day unscrolls I am home here, then,
its naked scripture: whom the world
sun, vision’s burning field, never loved,
islands, faint presences and from its torn edges
crumbling in the distance, I can almost see
water, the fickle immensities it all end:
life is made an onrushing tide,
constant by. a radiant sea-swell
And it strikes me sweeping away all appearance,
I love the sea gentle eddies
because it borders whittling the self
this suffering world till it is no longer
and the next: even sand.
the soul, it is said, I think of you
travels in a boat landlocked and lost
from a winding inland river, in another element--
homing clear-eyed your body.
toward the ocean-- The sea teaches me
which is the bottomless love is a wish
beyond. not for safety
And I know: but for destruction.
here, upon this beach, I am not ashamed
wash the crushed remains to admit it:
of what was once mortal: I love you
bone and kelp, the way water loves.
driftwood and tentacle, Which is to say
porous red coral-- I wish the world
Gift, 2
J. Neil C. Garcia
were through with you,
so you could return to me
ravaged, upon this shore:
a shell
held tight
inside my palm.