flotilla

I’m beginning to worry the bay is nothing but the night.

 

I know how darkness checks a wind.

Letting only moonlight pool and spread

Like the negative of ink on a blotting pad.

 

The lights in houses opposite go out.

 

I know how pines stand staggered by the dark between them.

In a dream they topple consecutively

Like show divers

And leave each island bare.

 

They form a flotilla and dam the big bay closed.

And then the earthwork men they come

And fill the water in.

The noise of stone saws searing.

The stones soak up the volume.

It takes so much to wake you.