The Last Line

Equals Sign

 

I put the mirror on the ground and at once the ground

became mirror-shaped sky. Then I was both places (at once), 

like the ever-line where the sky feeds the sea, wandering

in a kind of exile—exile: an old word—from myself.

The mind forms a metaphor; the metaphor, a form of mind.

 

The mirror (is) on the ground: the ground is infinite there:

My love is a red, red rose. My love is the cello’s long-held

note in a minor key. My love is your fast-fleeting laughter falling

off into silence. The half-moon seen between the high rises.

The sky searching in the mirror (on the ground) for its image.

The Wave on the Horizon, Venice Beach

I

The sad, slow-moving shape of a sailboat

traces the horizon line with a mast tip. 

Voices lost in the wave-chorus. Shape 

of the line-up mimics the brakewater: 

Wetsuitted surfers sit in rock patterns, 

pushing at the ocean. A brave little 

sandpiper scouts around the tourists’ feet, 

legs moving faster than the eye can follow—

if it cared to follow. The January sun turns waves

to pewter as the tide turns, returns;

somewhere, the moon waxes while the gulls’

shadows slide effortlessly over the sand.

 

II

 

Knowing that it’s an illusion doesn’t make 

the horizon line unreal—Here, where the ocean 

may pitch up white and slap the shore, 

begins there, where an indifferent-

colored sky meets a tangible blue sea: That

line is a surface. Reach out your hand: meet

that place at its conclusion. Debris sent

ahead: A feather. A rock. A sand-brown leaf.

 

The space in sound just after the line

breaks

 

and a new one is begun