No sense in being a poet if it's the same as being a citizen

Through the window a dust of gray light
spilled like a map of South America
out onto the sand

tipped on end like a shadow in the eyes of
reeds that bend beneath the weight of a threatening sky

a shallow sky & all the essential appliances

leading you past the gradual arrival of the tide

The rainy beach pavement stretching from here to Nagasaki
the bells & the shoreline split by a cold wind off the water

& long after it’s gone you can still hear it
rattling in the palm leaves
like dice games on the ocean floor