Surge

There is no mystery in the barrel
or plunge of your waves,

your sounds are borrowed
powers of the meat fed to the dwellers
of your womb,

and I have even been
told what you ingest
keeps travelling,

the further you flow, the darker
becomes the depths of a bound fate –

fish to fish,
whale to whale –

there are emigrants,
never stopping to die
in one place;

the progress of the person trapped
between your tides

reflects in patches on
your surface when you turn
still

and your face becomes
a transparent sheen.

* Previously Published at Poetry Bay