Sleep
does not come
naturally. There are
inconsistencies
in the air
around
the bed.
before
the fall
into
the thick
breathing
of beasts
he
rests on stone
and
loaves indistinguishable
from
one another.
The
bed is above a city.
He
is told: hurl
yourself down.
He sees his picture
on
the walls of
working-class
homes,
next
to the portrait
of
JFK.
When
he speaks
it
is the echo
of
empty rise bowls:
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.
He
breathes in the ocean.
His
hands cannot exist
in a
medium so thick
and
heavy with the moon,
they
become something green:
water
feathers he uses
with
second sight.
Towards
daybreak
the
wise fish settles.
Above
him is the bottom
of a
vessel, a drop of nets.
The
fisherman’s boat
is
slow wood
and
the crisp water,
sun
below sun.
Poetry Northwest
