Bottomless (August 2002)

Now would all the waves were women,
then I’d go drown, and chassee with them evermore!
— Maltese sailor in Moby Dick

The hard hurt lies in
believing what we only dream—
some confabulator’s will
to render heaving wave into
white breasts, spilling
a billion billowings
across my wand’ring days.
O Faust, with your
apalling spell! An
addict is a man in love
with his cups, the
vision in them
bottomless, no holds barred,
no desire unfulfilled.
Every unslakable thirst
drowns here in possibility,
down the siren bore
between tide and tempest,
her undulate breasts like
Scylla and Charybdis
my whole history
leaps into begging
for her white squeeze.
I heard once a lottery
winner was found 8 months
later floating in a Miami
canal, wearing only
a pair of shorts & an
empty pint jammed in
his pocket. School the mind,
drear friend, to
turn from salt infinitude.
That isn’t her you look for
but a world’s turn and smile
which your longing requires,
something you never found
because the earth is big and round
and turns her curves
always away, beyond any mound
you'll reach or name or sound.