Our ropes are the roots of our life. We fish low in the earth, the river beneath runs through our veins, blue and cold in a riverbed. When the sun comes up, the moon moves slowly to the left. I tie the logs and limbs together, holding them in place. The ocean beats them smooth like rock. Here my sense of time is flat. I find in a strip of damp sand footprints and marks of hands, and torn pieces of flesh. Night is a beast. The tide moves, gushing back and forth. Sunlight touches our faces, turning us, turning us, turning us in our morning sleep. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTRA MORTEM: THE GREAT DEATH by HAYDEN CARRUTH EVERYONE KNOWS WHOM THE SAVED ENVY by JAMES GALVIN SPRING BLIZZARD by JAMES GALVIN THE IMPORTANCE OF GREEN by JAMES GALVIN TO MY CLASS: ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ... SICKNESS by SIDNEY LANIER SENRYU: BLIND DATE by TIMOTHY LIU |