to the Ocean

in defense of easternizing west, west east. Stone sewn
until accidental scraping-over incites—on flat ground! even
sanguinity of gold and rust on a hill side, sloping down
to the city—on one side—and ocean on the other.

You ruddy maximalist. Wearing a toggle navy blue pea coat
and combing the beach, cigarette smudging the blush
of your pate. It is never easy making self-sustaining
diets of disparate threads undulating like fissile seagrass.

And then you are even in love! with the jewess daughter
of a wharfman. And as distant as the tribe now felt; old
maiding, perhaps, but willing to do it up in a cigarette dress
of starched black cotton. Brother-in-law to the butcher,

to the ocean.