Ocean Hymn

The summer air flattens me like a leaf 

pressed against a window in a storm. 

The veins curling, as if extending through

the glass; a pin burrowing on a whim 

into a stranger’s life. The days are wilting. 

The nights. Diving into a lake to find 

it has turned into glass, and then to realize 

it isn’t a lake at all, but a mirror, reflecting 

my secrets like moths to a wound. 

My thoughts echo into the crisscross of stars.

I can hear my voice, speaking, as if to say

what you are looking for is out there, find it. 

The shivering first breath upon surfacing 

the water. A flurry of doves into a pair of lungs. 

A dandelion breaking topsoil. Come fall, it will 

scatter to the wind, its existence lost in the folds 

of time. Still, it blooms. As if to say: I will exist, 

even ephemerally. I yearn for low tide,

the sand ridging beneath my toes. The waves,

constantly evolving into the same thing.

I dream of diving backwards. The unspooling of myth

into reality. I dream of swimming in syllables as if 

I can catch living on my tongue. Catch 

footprints on the shore at night, knowing 

they’ll be gone by morning.