Imago

The world is ripeness, swelling. There is a moment when it will pass
into another broken thing but this is for later. Most cannot see it:

the large boys on kiteboards, the bleached crab shells,
naked children sifting sand cannot see it.

The swell is the bright flood time, when the horizon grows too wide to move across.

*

In the swell you cup your hands to your face, little eyes painted on the backs
of little fingers, so that like a moth you threaten or appease.

The insides of your palms, too, have eyes; you sprout Hamsa Hands
which may in fact be mirrors. When you blink, they all blink, in a synchronization

so perfect the idea of "you" dissipates. No one place marks the source
of action. The moth is pinned to your face in such a fashion

as to give an appearance of life. When you move your hands the wings
flutter, scales like feathers, so now you want to be a bird but are stuck.

Beyond your fingers the beach is a red place, but of course this redness
is part of you. Voices float through the air and enter your throat,

which echoes back a reply. "That's interesting," you think.
"I've never felt it like that before."

*

If only the swell would subside. On the warmest of days an optical effect
smears a dark line of gray over the water. Boats emerge from it

white-sailed, ready for surrender, or fishing from blue hulls.
Cormorants man the rocks like figureheads.



(guest contribution by Knut Mork Skagen)