Classic Poem

Nature, not emotion, has creased
the dolphin's smile — yet she
so adores

the mariner, she kicks to keep
her snout above water, the sun
drilling her blind —

A coral reef, blooming toward
the light: skeletal calcite
fathers

fatten the towers, and push
the ocean water still higher,
shading them —

Sink before me, dear friends,
feud and fuse, join the chafing
bone rung

ladder I clamber up, friend
on friend, lest the hissing foam
freeze my jaw —











From Poetry Magazine Vol. 187, no. 6, March 2006 used with permission