at sea

Gratitude is the only secret that cannot reveal itself.

Emily Dickinson

at sea privacy is a narrow throat

of space: breath - depress - 

express - impress- a chest of keeps.

and the lid is hinged against

the wind of want - long shut 

and soaked in years 

of cormorant - of booby - 

guano let go in sticks - in kelp nests 

pressed with web- with crawl 

of bodies of exo-self - of alfresco

calcium - of labored ivory advertised -

of gum and jaw - all for wont

of simple thrust against

the weight of bones kept indoor - 

of gravity and atmosphere

or else the pry of some hand-

stitched grid made to mark

a rendezvous with incongruity: 

to rise - to be private - to go

to see (d) like all things alive

waiting to die to be alive