Dolphin Rider (2000)

He is both meat
and motion of
my darkest pure joys,
a figure carving
one wave with his weight
then leaping over the next
in a shower of full-mooned
spray. It doesn't matter
what I say here, how
I praise or damn him:
He just rides that
bigass fish on and on,
every night and
nightside of my life
singing those big
brassy ballsy songs.
He's my totem curse,
an archetype of
ruin which has
hammered to
smithereens
every swingin' dick
in my clan. Like
my great great
grandfather O'Riley
who burned his fiddle
to atone for all the
drunk fiddling
haystack-fucking
the fish god demanded
of him. The last time my
father saw him he was
72 and in hot
shit for offering
a neighbor’s wife
a quarter for a toss.
The music never ends:
tail and tooth and cock
and voice are all flames
of an eloquent fire
born on God's
abyssal plains,
awful or awesome
depending on how
you survive that music.
Today I say he rides
to protect and
border and greet
us just beyond
whatever solace
we call harbor.
Singing is just
surrender you know
to what rises
and burns as much as
to the dark waters
you carry. A white flag
for dolphins at midnight.
My voice alone singing her
name on this vanquished
eternal beach.