what will become of the morning and the light

the strange attempts

composing Elliot’s last line

in darkness and in light

unarmed in the glory of retail

Venice is finally lost

after the long pause
& sea shells
we practice the art of avoidance

we only hear hand prints
white paper and corrugated tin

floating

we have no words
grammar or god

dressed in white, they prayed

Voices, scored into
the waters’ green.
When the kingfisher dives
the split second whirs:

What stood by you
appears on every shore
mown down
into another image.

*

a doll, a rice steamer, a clock
drying in the sun

*
the fishermen have not returned

*
washed into the sea
these are not their voices

---------------------

Notes: The first stanza is from an untitled poem in Paul Celan's Glottal Stop, p. 1

The place of vulnerability is also the place of poetry.

--Nikolai Popov & Heather McHugh, from the preface to Glottal Stops: 101 Poems, by Paul Celan, p. xiii