A fang from the sea monstered floor of
the straits
Or the igneous hat of a wizard
ruckling waves
Grown in the swell’s accent
Fishermen mystify
A moonwashed beacon in the spring tides
In winter
A gruff sea demon
When gales utter guttural oaths
and north atlantic booms
This giant’s toehold
Slides under the world
To become
In evening calms
A basalt pebble in the sea’s playground
In the geography of dream
It is always inhabited
A turret struck for birds
A crag to cleave the sun in two
On canvas
Or off the rail of a ship
It is what it always was
Awesome Solemn
I know this water
It is a thawed ice-age glacier
That slices our country
Ocean to ocean
No one has fathomed it
Boys have fallen in
No bones are ever recovered
No light can search water
So thick with past
When the world is ember
Still as the winter trees
I have seen the
blurry black image
of something slithering
into water
Then a great back
Going against the current
We have all seen it
From this water we feed
I have had its dreams
It is ours to grapple or invoke
This winter we have grown fat
Our minds are full of dragons