This is the blood of Christopher,
brine, horsetail, sunlight creeping

through that casement, opening ocean flat.
Somewhere land bottoms out. The seaweed

lynched in currents hangs on-
when it is no longer sea, when

sea is no longer air, and when sky,
that stone horse on water's edge is gone.

We must floss between meals,
swallow in small doses, dream

what cannot come to pass. Beyond
a ship's prow, a child's palette

of stars give rise over mast.
His pocket of moon gentler now

as the lungs of a woman's seal-like
skin re-surfaces. He sings a langue d'oc

in courtly love, caresses a wave,
imagines a place as Apollo might,

ornamentally, clothed in clematis
and aureole, where Mars that serpent

in tall sedge stutters and Neptune's
isthmian smile stills to hear

a seagull's high pitched bursts,
trawl in a sinfonietta of angels.

Work of mine has appeared in The American Literary Review, The Hollins Critic, The Northern Michigan Journal, The Reader (Oxford University), The Cortland Review and The Midwest Quarterly. Recent awards include a Pushcart Nomination, and I have a second collection scheduled to be published by Archer Books / Cadmus Editions this spring. Finally, I serve as managing editor for a not-for-profit publication called Recursive Angel.

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