a Golden Shovel



Liberty-spiked, I rock on the current. You should

cut and run my complexion sputters. The sea, unintermitted

synthesis, grasps its parts. It would pickle vengeance,

if it were you. Three killed. Four missing. Still, your polychloroprene arm

assumes it can soothe water’s prickly heat, and mine. Think again

my infinite filament spits. It sensed sudden ahis’

new-salt sensitivities, golden streaks breaking away in the reef’s red

aqua regia. Lobsters’ cresting shrieks : urchins’ wandering fire : my nurseries’ bright

-ening absence. The thinned out instincts of kin you sent back. A big hand

for the transgressor surf seethes. You can’t not lend your name to

conservation, but can you love me, warts and all? Unplague

yourself? Unkeel? The moon wheels its shelfless basalt ocean towards us. 







Note: fewer than 250—100, according to one source—red handfish (Thymichthys politus; warty excrescence, polished)

are living in the wild; ‘wandering fire’ is from Paradise Lost