from sea 1890
BY ALISHA YI
In a prehistoric painting, the sea
is a slumbering green picture
with one rock by the sideway.
The young are bounding into waters,
laid awake by the shore, finely lined
with the confessing greys: sloped
like shoulders, like the currents
shearing the strident’s feet,
now porcelain and hungry.
The sand crinkles as if the earthen husk
is flowing into each other
like wet paintings, sonic knockings
on white-chip walls, the whisper
of a curved brine gathered at the back
of an orchard. The sun is abating,
like eyes at sea, next to the knead
of the white rocks from the underway.
The young are damp from the rivulets,
folded into the granite rocks: the slope
gradually heading into abyss.
