HEAVEN’S HEAD

I gathered all my nets to the sea wall

where I have sat segregated, tightly

wrapt in my old green blanket, skinny legs

dangling over the edge, fishing all day.

Sunset ripens gently, a bough of mangoes

on the western branch. The moon lunges

at Heaven’s Head.

                            The sea goes by, gossiping.

I caught mostly catfish and dogfish, alack,

threw them all back. The bait pail is empty,

the tide is out, but my line keeps water

and the errant eyes roam and report

a funereal flotilla of weeds, butts

and black sticks steaming to the sea-graveyard.

A white crab gyrates by like a thing unleashed,

back and claws a dull flash. A seahorse!

Look, there is a seahorse galloping

on submarine pastures. Homes around the bay

raise fluorescent lids off their eyes,

lights fleck the water like strings of baguettes.

A drape is drawn to my left and a shadow

leaves a dark streak across a dim-lamped room.

Pausing for a moment from the eye-deep

etude, I hear the cry of a lone pelican

and the high-pitched haggling and craving of gulls.

From the upstairs apartment, the Dave Brubeck

Quartet looms the cloth of undercurrent.

Water tap-dances with the wall, consciousness

penetrating, like sleep or wet pup’s tongues.

The wind! The wind! Would I were kin with the wind!

Would I were a pelican, singing the waves.

I would be the ocean, omniscient of all coasts.

Would I were an eyebeam in the dense heavens,

seeing Heaven, scorning the heathens mixing below.

The cockerel of solitude beats me

heavily about the head with its weighted wings.

Sitting is one with motion at Heaven’s Head.

I can still hear the galloping seahorse, long

gone, neighing over those green submarine

prairies.

               The sea goes on gossiping,

and I touch my earthen forehead to the ground.