Shipwreck

My heart went and drowned in the ocean.

From my flabby chest it tore itself out and I couldn’t catch it.

The waves are like bright green playing cards being shuffled.

From the half empty carcass-belly of the island

in the afternoon: Sometimes a sun grew, pinked my malnourished arms;

Sometimes a pelican came, dove into the water like lightning.

My hair is so thin from the pounding surf.

I cradle a worm in my palms and hold it underwater.

I cradle a fish its bones are my bones and it rolls in the sea.

I am waving to airplanes flying too high to see me.

I say good evening over a transistor radio with sand in the speakers.

“Crack crack crack,” goes a mainland DJ, like a flaregun.

Sure the ocean is great, flat and always the same.

We are not like oceans who turn themselves over every day and grow again.

We are puzzled by the sameness and we are swept like sandcastles

into the surf and are forgotten.