limestone, with traces of polychromy, c. 1250 <br /> <br /> Point Dume was the point, <br />he said, but we never came close, <br />no matter how far we walked the shale <br /> broken from California. <br /> <br /> Someone's garden <br />had slipped, hanging itself by a vine <br />from the cliffs of some new Babylon <br /> past Malibu. <br /> <br /> Drowning the words, <br />the wind didn't fling back in our faces, <br />the Pacific washed up a shell: <br /> around an alabastron <br /> <br /> of salt water for the dead, <br />seaweed rustled its papers, drying them out, <br />until it died. Waves kept crashing <br /> into the heart <br /> <br /> of each shell <br />I held to my ear like a phone, <br />but they were just the waves of my blood. <br /> And through it all <br /> <br /> I heard him say, <br />how could it be nine months ago <br />his grandson had taken his own life, <br /> somewhere back east? <br /> <br /> He was fifteen. <br />O Pacific, what good is our grief? <br />Something screamed at the sandy child <br /> who poured seawater <br /> <br /> into a hole. <br />Child, you'll never empty the ocean, <br />Augustine said. How can I believe? <br /> The wet fist of a wave <br /> <br /> dissolved in sand. <br />Like a saint, a seagull flapped down the beach <br />in search of something raw—an angel <br /> with an empty pail? <br /> <br /> No, a teenage boy, <br />hands big as a man's, held a sea slug <br />quaking like an aspic. Under a rock, another <br /> drew into its body <br /> <br /> a creature <br />larger than itself. Live, said Death, <br />to child and childless alike, indifferently. <br /> I am coming.<br /><br />Debora Greger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/head-perhaps-of-an-angel/
