Poem: March 15, 2019

A God To Swallow Us Whole

Write a poem about the ocean
and how it seems to breathe,
inhaling us toward the edges
of its dark and restless lungs.

Try to explain its strange power
to orient us all like sunflowers
to the sun, staring, staring,
at the stacked coastal palette-
blue, grey, tan, white- a gradient
in the light until the sun drops away
and the sky twists upon itself like pink
and orange paper, crumpled to create
its rough and fleshy evening texture.

Remind me how we feel, stepping
closer together across the hard sand
and being taken in an ankle-deep gasp
into the mouth of the cool, salty tide.

Tell me how the wind blows
like insistent whispers across
our bodies and about the lights
we might see blinking on the horizon
like a will-o-the-wisp. Tell me how,
even now and from so far away
we ache, we ache to follow.