In late summer the sea comes to the city

It isn't yourself you see at the end
Of August but a glimpse of something in

A gutter's standing water.  The flat-you,
Swept up in traffic, is an image, looking  back.

The rush of drive time like the rush
Of surf, noise fastened to the brain.

The faster the speed-ambulance, squad
Car, the more headway into a boredom

Repetitious as sun that blunts and stuns
Until all seagulls look the same.  Generics.

The oddness, being hollowed by not being
Able to notice detail.  You can't

Imagine-what is it like to be left
With a solitary thought, uprooted,

Embodiment unmoored, pulled out from
Beneath you by unfathomed undertow?

Every last cell lost.  In this way, you
Will learn distance from your memory.


Previously published:  Dogwood, Spring 2005; Verse Daily, June 9, 2005.