Watermaid

Eye open on the sea, / eyes open, of the prodigal; / upward to heaven shoot / where stars will fall from. // Secret I have told into no ear, / save into a dughole, to hold, not to drown with — / Secret I have planted into beachsand // now breaks / salt-white surf on the stones and me, / and lobsters and shells / in iodine smell — / maid of the salt-emptiness, / sophisticreamy, // whose secret I have covered up with beachsand ... // Shadow of rain over sunbeaten beach, / shadow of rain over man with woman.

Bright / with the armpit-dazzle of a lioness, / she answers, // wearing white light about her; // and the waves escort her, / my lioness, / crowned with moonlight. // So brief her presence — / match-flare in wind’s breath — / so brief with mirrors around me. // Downward ... / the waves distil her; / gold crop / sinking ungathered. // Watermaid of the salt-emptiness, / grown are the ears of the secret.

And i who am here abandoned, // count the sand by wavelash abandoned, / count her blessing, my white queen. // But the spent sea reflects / from his mirrored visage / not my queen, a broken shadow. // So I who count in my island the moments, / count the hour which will bring // my lost queen with angels’ ash in the wind.

The stars have departed, / the sky in monocle / surveys the worldunder. // The stars have departed, / and I — where am I? // Stretch, stretch, O antennae, / to clutch at this hour, // fulfilling each moment in a / broken monody.