Waist-deep in the broth
of the Atlantic, I take
a wave made of fists to the
chest. Stumbling in the
cockstrut way of feet
on shells, I remember
that eighty percent of
our globe is salt water
just like the eighty percent of
our bodies—all saline too.
Knocked to my shins
by the juggernaut tide,
I have to thank that
four-fifths of me which
resists going home, out
to sea. And the sea too
deserves a kind word
for being patient, having
the self-control or
temperance to not come
and claim us in our sleep.
(2003)
