A.M.

Softly softly, you’ll wake the clams.

—T. Roethke

That beach dream again. The one whereI am a horseshoe crab and wash up tornby a galactic sea, legless without my helmet.

I boil caffeine to fuel my thoughts,which like stray dogs in back alleys scavengeothers' leavings for the scent of something fresh.

So much happened before my screenwent dark with light, exposing the garbage bagsnaked, curbside. I want to remember

before the day’s machinery beginshow the sea peeled back its apron, strandingbream and amberjack, leaving them sucking air

with faces like Giotto’s saints who escapedsienna-skirted on steps they carved out of blue airto pull a silken bell cord, to ring in morning.