A doorway stands at the throat of the world.
Pulsing light dazzles the upper half
gloom blackens the bottom.
Are rapture and misery so side-by-side?
Above,
a ball of moon is indented with potholes
from when it was still malleable
and rolled across a gravel night.
Then the zenith blasted the sky into soot.
A grey patch coughs
a dull glow around the night’s orb.
If I tip-toe and stretch my bones across the sea
I can almost pluck it from the sky.
Below,
the veins of the sea froths as its pelt ripples —
ocean tongues hunt in packs —
they ride onto the shore to lick my feet
then ebb back to circle the doorway
never drifting me with them
to the ever-turning wheel of life and death.
They tease me.
They torment me.
For there,
across the world
stands my silhouette
unreachable.