Morskaya

when you say my name [informal:

mother] I do not hear self

or future

but feel the sunlit

cyanic cadence

of other [japanese:

interval] inflections, like the clear-cut

anchor of an exacting question

when I am still unsteady

and stained by first 

address – that entry

a quick breeze

that disturbs my cover

and travels forever.

the half-moon whirls

the years 

into a snaking

wreath of waves,

the mouth a clepsydra, meteors

like incisions

testing our atmosphere, then crumbling

into pacific foam – I, as someone’s

eremitic, [sanskrit:

water] enrapt ocean – as their succession

of three breaths – lips parted

in denouement –

their arias [vietnamese:

ghost] fading into mist.

and someone else

across the narrow is being

lifted, lowered – to blue,

then grey, then static, 

just out of view

of my shore – so that I must rise,

cross myself,

call to them – my name

within the voices

of bodies I

love, drawing me in.