Sea Cow

This sea cow finds her

altitude at the waterline,

crowned in amber floats

that could be lettuce

or copper dung, either way,

her body punctuates

everything around her. If I can’t be

manatee, I want at least to be

the cabbage petals

she mouths, trailing

sea grass, gently

shedding milk &

the low orbit of her calf.

She is wrapped

in underwater caul-light,

& everything

stills. I am

disordered,

the fibrous teawater

seems like a happier home

than my body,

& I want in.

Where is

hope on a day like

today?

I want to be a slow

fold when a sea

cow rises,

tiny bones floating

in a vast white comma of muscle,

because I have stepped

inside my intuition,

& it’s a cold place,

& it seems there is no

love there, & little

talent. There was only a mustachioed

man in a slick tux &

roller skates, w/ his chilled

tray of milk bottles,

& I drank them all,

so that when I kissed him

we sank in milk,

the hand-stitched scarves

lining the silver tray

sopped in cold spilled

milk, the roomy light from a

planet above, no hint of

warmaking except a lone

blimp, milky white

against the blank

eyelid of sky, the loose threads

drifting & tangling,

pale bombs

fissuring,

a lullaby,

gridless & soft,

what unborn in me was good

& likeable,

what could be loved

I loved. Which is fine,

I blame myself for everything I have gotten

wrong here, the loose sprouts &

sea grass, the sweetness

of milk,

shallow nurseries

bonneted in despair,

loss easy &

guileless,

my face at the tank, hoping

something big

might notice me.

Maybe I drop something,

perhaps a stitch

of this unshakeable sorrow,

maybe a poem will say anything

to be loved.