Letter for Montale


We'll travel far
with nothing but the copper coins
of our eyelids,
a sprig of basil tucked
behind an ear in which the sea
no longer breaks.
And the vowels will drop from trees
with a consonant thud,
the slow shrinking
of the pomegranate's pink skin.
I long to say
a song will remind us
of the tired harbours,
the creak of the boat's
swelling chest and revelation,
or the streets unwound
from the pale shroud in twilight.
But the earth is as indifferent
as the red scarf behind
the stretched sheet on a clothesline.
It raises the treble 'If'
which hangs like the shadow
of the vanished squid.
And the sea rakes her garden
with teeth worn thin
on the souls of drowned fishermen;
the gravelled scrape of tongue
on salted earth.
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