ALL WE ARE NOT

1 0 8 Y A L L W E A R E N O T G E R I D O R A N O√shore, beyond the breakwater, past guiding pylons, where the bottom sand drops to depth and the fog collects dense and more wet – there in middle distance, nearer to shore than horizon, farther than the o≈ng, in the constant in medias res where waves thicken low and black and silver above in curls sheared from the surface – there in movement ceaselessly beating, moon-pulled, savage – there in the loudest rumble of ocean’s dominion where water intensifies will, will that governs everything human by contradiction – all we are not – shaming our infidelities great and small, the nothing-human-at-all of water surges toward landmass, toward us, as if drawn by some primordial need of hard, geologic plate for its counterpart: for movement fast and unrelenting, cognate of the rigid mantle. And we, honeycombed water vialed in pliant flesh, stand between, cognate of nothing but the mutable way, ourselves obliging and obdurate by turns, but never completely, and never for long. ...