The Sea at L’Estaque

Because the slip between blue

and battleship avoids the crosshairs—

the crossed branches that knock

in a wind some distance inland, too

weak to hold the bucket of sunlight

spilled at the hill’s crest, too weak

or too flexible, naked, tapered, true

to their own work, and shortsighted,

which together is a kind of strength—

the mind lifts the wall of sea, hauls

it nearer the village, a stalled, looming

storm wave, its own display case,

the glass in a dark aquarium visitors

want to pass through unharmed

into a deranged new propulsion, breathe

differently, grab hold of the boneless

slick skin like palming an eyeball,

live happily in the depressurized

element, thoughtless amongst kin

with no north or surface or death

to speak of, to internalize as cardinal point

or lodestar, etched deep into the so-called

future. A log, say, a segment of ship’s

mast, rotating as though on a drugged

lathe, takes the long, galvanized nail

to a depth of one inch. A second nail

driven the same depth in the dense wood

adjacent, a third abuts that, a fourth, so on,

continuously, as the log continues its axial

roll until an undulant metal fan of spikes

skirts the log’s length. On each flat

nailhead is fixed a machined filament,

a powerful light, wired one to the next,

so a circuit of sub-zero blue saturates

the surrounding air, its multitudes

and granular impurities, rich smoke,

sleek carbons, innocent, residual, ancient

cells the poets sing of and name dust.

Deep nimbus of woad or Egyptian,

as related to tapeworms as it is to TV,

to diving wrecks as it is to distance,

it refuses to speak or blink and turns

in its chamber without base or support,

without reason or lifespan or use.