“Take it, take it,” to an ocean I beseech
A phial of hungry glass
“To some distant beach”
Holding within it
All the air from my lungs,
Every heart beat,
Baby teeth and hair
All the domestic days in the Delaware creek
And spare
Time
Rolling in the waves, frothing jaws
Now have the empty bottle
I pause, I curse
That some child of me will
Coddle
In the ever-ceaseless body
Full and empty
As the phial, this thing of matter
Sublime in depth
But empty in purpose
Containing all life
But with heartless curses,
Instilled of placidity
But throbbing with surge
Until, it too, the phial will purge
—Had I known its fate of woe
( A monument! And I let it go!)
—I would have weathered the inevitable
( A monument! And I let it go!)
—Then, at least, there’d be something to show
( A monument! And I let it go!)