The Ocean Never Lets Go

He walked slowly, for a god, even a minor god, but maybe he was
savouring the lights of Marine drive, strung low across the pelvis

of this throbbing city, rivalling the stars, the sea a fluid square of
denial between shimmering possibilities on an infinite graph. Is

there a word, I asked him, for when we run away from ourselves,
when everything has been left behind and yet everything is so far

ahead that it can never be reached. He watched the waves cresting
silver on the rocks. Look, he said, how the light mixes in the water,

how one wave leaves it behind for another, the ocean never lets go.
He was scampering down the rocks to scoop up the fallen light, the

night creeping up behind me, wrapping its arms around my waist,
everything is a new moon, in the sky, in the water, inside a word.

 

More poems in the “monologues with a minor god” series here.