“You were deep down as I’ve ever been.
You were inside me like my pulse.”
—Marilyn Hacker, Nearly a Valediction
I watched the empty horizon undulate in the early morning light.
Filtered sunlight glittered inside barrels of breaking waves.
The blue haze expanded. Energy crested the ridges.
It takes so much to get out here, at this outer edge,
where commitment merges with devotion.
The lines swell then inevitably crash, a primal rhythm—
fold inward to return—as the wave finds itself, again;
a prayer, a purpose, a merged whole. A sky wants to be seen.
Estranged claws, feathers, and shells; a whole crab,
transparent jelly blobs, fog burning light as memory.
What permission exists out here—in all this openness?
What forgiveness lives inside consistent change?
What is found between these concurrent lines?
Yielding, a conditioning, and finding oneself prone
[ironic that our lungs find more oxygen in this position].
Timing the sets and their swell periods measures quality.
I ride abandoned. Renunciation follows embrace,
I leave behind what was holding me back.
Cache Culture 