“Tragedy By the Sea”
After the 1955 Pulitzer photo of the same title
In rapture tales, we /
disappear if faithful:
Those days at the zoo, preschool, the alphabet, the periodic table. /
What are lighthouses
for? /
Us, our anniversary, our years of leaving ourselves behind, /
our girls rushing into receding
waves to sate a magnetic madness. /
We half-sleep in hot dunes while gyres
of plastic trash form islands beyond our sight: /
*
To pass to decline to rust to open /
to last to recline into must to darken–
We’re here with what’s left /
of wisdom on silk-screen t’s,
here to see the seaplane drag a marriage /
proposal across the sky, to feel
the sun touch its lost twin atoms within /
us, our archaeology:
given that a building can be /
wholly /
windows, that a species can be a billion drones
with only one real queen, /
we can seem real for years.
*
After all, Earth’s oceans formed from several hundred million /
years of constant rain
& tonight, the lifeguard chairs empty & the sand /
shifts, & though it’s banned, one can climb
them to ask, /
was there ever such a thing as us?
Us, the end of a long montage, here /
to hear the pattern behind all
change while our children’s shadows /
seed the deep,
while a white-haired man with a marine /
tattoo brushes sand into a sculpture of his lord.
We’re here to wonder is that which we’ve built /
along the shoreline, the all-you-can-eat,
live-show-every-Friday, rooftop party, /
a good idea? What does prayer feel
like anymore? Breaking bands that glow /
like poison around our wrists
freeing us to see the night? To sing broken /
whale song to fuss to smooth
into quiet discomfort to deepen toward /
to fast to trust the choice to seep into vast design.
*
To lust to rouse the self into work /
& hope to sharpen to design
a room for a child to grow
away–
& knowing we’ll be bored with age
one day & want
to see how time played
Us, to take
a picture.