Following the retreating shore, we lead
our horses into valleys flat with
slopped
deposits of silt and junk. Nail-toothed
eels loop
in pools; huge squid ooze aimless around
the oily iridescence, skins rippling
with
rainbow eyespots. While the earth drains
we eat
those freaks, slice chunks off suckered
arms.
The topsoil bakes with trapped compost
of choked sealife, drowned birds and
beasts. Steam vines
up mountain slopes, crystallizes at
night
on summits of rock. Children track our
plows,
sowing the exothermic plain, kids pick
skulls from furrows instead of stones,
parse bones
as beast or human. Skeletons stack
neatly into fences, white walls for huts. We wear
ourselves out working, dream ad idem
of
mushy spatter
and drip on
decking.
The constant
roll of a wooden hull.
Greedy water
discs our
sleep,
tossing up little dollops
wherever raindrops fall.
The immense
chime
of rain perforating the sea.
In my bunk, I listen to the hum of ants
hollowing ribs and tibia
within the walls, admire
the myriad spider webs.
Through gaps between femurs and funnels
I watch insomniacs stumble
side to side in nocturnal fields,
teasing
bones from rancid mud,
mourning over drowned unknowns,
the disarticulated dead.
On the sea’s
tympanum
once we
found a flotilla of glass buoys,
knitted in
the teal fibres of fishing nets.
Under them
hung strips of over-weighted mesh,
snagged and
tangled with dead
sharks and
cormorants,
loose
sneakers and cushions.
On one stray
cord a bride
in bridal
dress
was leashed
head downward
in the
water, veil
and chiffon
train
beating with
an inorganic pulse.
Daniel Cowper’s first
book of poetry is forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s University Press. His
chapbook, The God of Doors, was published
by Frog Hollow Press as co-winner of its chapbook contest. Daniel and his wife
serve as the poetry editors for Pulp
Literature, and live mostly in a small cabin on Bowen Island, BC.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.