Two Poems

Skyway
 
I.
 
I dive, peering through goggles.
The artificial reef is a dark crescent,
shaggy with algae, a furred shadow.
 
I can just make out steel pipes
and concrete rubble salvaged
 
from the old bridge—disjointed parts
dressed in colonies of polyps—some stony
and others flexible as fronds.  I drop
 
deeper, to where sound is an impression
embodied in the rhythmic sway
 
of soft coral in the current. 
My heart thrums within me, fleshy
creature encased in shell. 
 
 
                       
 
II.
 
I picture you with me, snorkeling
on the surface, wearing your old mask
 
with the rubber skirt and faceplate so heavy,
it tugged my head down when I tried it.
 
Your fins and snorkel are the color
of tires.  Words form on your lips, but
 
I hear only garbled sound.  You turn
to gestures and distorted expressions.
 
Sometimes I wonder if you spoke so much
because you were afraid if you didn’t
 
you’d disappear, your existence
contingent upon having a listener.
 
Just as I once thought, if your words
stopped, so would mine.
 
 
 
III.
 
Ankle-deep in the surf, I google grief
and rediscover Freud, who argues
 
mourning only ends after detaching
from the dead and reinvesting
 
in the living.  It sounds surgical.
He claims grief can overwhelm
 
the basic instinct to survive. 
On that I agree.  I can’t imagine
 
the day I’ll think of losing you
without pain.  But I’m finally
 
ready to admit, my choosing not
to live fully won’t make you
 
any less dead.  
 
 
 
 
IV.      
                       
The new Skyway is a lofty arch
over the bay, flanked by ruins
 
of the old bridge, remade into piers.
Parked cars and fishermen line
 
the guardrail where I stand, watching.
A truck rolls by and reverberations
 
rise through my soles.  Sunset dyes
the scarred concrete golden.  I glance
 
down, discover my limbs are pink
and faintly glowing, blood vessels
 
opening, skin absorbing sun.


***



Salvage
 
Sandpipers skirt the surf, dipping
        	in and out of the fray, tracks erased
 
as soon as they’re laid.  I’ve thought you
        	so far removed, lost.  Now I wonder why
 
I imagined you constrained to a body. 
        	Ocean inches over tidelines, recovering
 
dead moon jellies and eggshell remains
        	of leopard-print crabs.  Night fastens
 
around an egret like a wrapper, bird merging
        	with sky.  Wave follows wave.