she taught me again today, the sea

(i returned like a reformed drunk

still ill with booze but ready for rebirth)

filled with the pomp of learning at

her altar yesterday, i stepped off the

shale ledge to commune with her, embalm.

The judder hyperventilation scramble footing

scraped furrows in clod thick feet

and soles communed with rapid death

to get out. YOU ARE NOT READY

the sun crackled salt skin like a piglet

on the spit, laid out on the trillion gems

that clickered millennia like rollers

casting factory carcasses off to cure. mim