We slow, walking into water Lapping salt, uncertain how to speak Arched words, in the face Of an amniotic resistance To advancing life Remember how the Madonna grieved When her child rose again Counting days like seagulls Above a garbage shore On your holiday towel the stains Of eggs and leavened bread Sister what’s-your-name Can you spare a coin for love? You have a gravid face Breaking open sunshine Just a quiet deception Something fragrant in your mouth Crushed sweet seeds, a flower An azure sea, a breeze below The moon when summer Turns, more or less, as the hand Before your smile Bent as it repudiates God does not write home With platitudes and dreads Homilies about these dismal Seaside coloured days Sandwiches quite stale How the scavengers are blessed When they steal and beg Other frail beatitudes from your disregard The deck chairs bellows semaphores In candy-coloured cyphers A breath as light as new-made saints On convalescent afternoons
