Fiscal Year

I take the ferry home. It's January still,or July; I wear a coat or I do not. I wear a tie.

Tonight, the boat sits low and I look out acrossthe deck to see if there are more of us or less,then sink in and watch old water curtain openright below the bow. Two men in hats lookeast, the sun goes down, a third in bluestands up with them, they all look west.

And I don't recognize at first until all at onceI do: man on land is never just one man.Doubt, like ballast, lifts, and I see us see ourmeasure and our form! And, just like that!A life has weight, I think, or could … I hear that song,

I ate till I had had my fill of salmon, rye, and wine

until I see the sea show signs of age and breech,and all around the starboard side there's wreckage,dredge, and dread. I reach and pull out first the hatsand then the suits, then shoes—what burps up to the top,what rots, what reckoned, what thought that it was still.

One dawn I stood alone out here just as the suncame up. I heard a sound, looked up, and sawa whale who held her baleen body up againstthe sky so long I cried all day rememberingwhat poets say, the fish can't_waste_his life.

Then my eyes went soft like prey,and now all I can see are men in droveswho think in crowds that we count all alone