Wake

Casamicciola, Ischia

Look past the ships at port, past Maryon her gull's perch at harbor's heart.Look past the ribs of sailboats dockedand locked till August. Past the past itself,which idles like a trawler always almostready to reveal its haul. Look past it all,the bars on wobbly pilings, portly bathersslick in oil, Mondrian of beach chairs linedor stacked or laid out flat in fearful symmetry.The man with the rake. The fussed-over sand.Look past, I want to say, but, then: what, then?Just a blue that gathers at its seams the wakesof hydrofoils, erasing even them. Erasureas a dangerous science, banned religion.Heresies: they come in all the azures, lapislazuli, and midnights we can think of.This one here is nothing special, other than.Nothing meaning something far beyondsome fluke of chemical alliance, some fishand salt. Besides, the haze is clearing.Atop the flanks of Vesuvius now, its jaggedrim discernible but just, another opportunityblown. We are made of such intense regrets.No taking that back, that or the trawler's catch.I see them now unloading all the spoils, curiousword we use both for the bounty and the waste.