Unread Correspondence

poem #98

photo by the author

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I will go to the eastern coast 
where my family is hidden,
among rocks so passive 
water makes wounds in them.
The old woman of the water,
all out of iron, makes shawls 
for the men of the earth.
The last of her spite
sees them bunched and forgotten
between the beached bars of the sand.

My family are sturdier, and kinder,
and drift like the moon 
to avoid detection. 
(Imagine them: my elders 
running sidelong in scrabble and brush, 
arms arced wide and skyward, barefoot,
heads tilted to their stone
paraclete... breathless,
but they and I know they won’t 
need it where they’re going: 
some old Irish medicine, I think...)

They are only visible 
when they are full of spirits —
I have heard stories 
from those who can see them.
They send letters and describe 
the town, and the town
I have come to cease my belief in.
The town runs along the river like a child.

To know the town is to read 
letters from the invisible continent,
from the sea cave that mediates 
all conflict between the seen world
and the world no family shows you,
the invisible planet whose gravity
moves them, whose oceans 
sing them full of their lunacy.

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