Pore

We eat clouds, drink dawn from tide pools, taste churn
of silver bait. Emptiness, Einstein said, like the next door
vacant lot full of play and decay, site of radiant fluctuation
since she left. We swim in sound—grunt, laugh, moan,
high-coupled screeches. Descend to beach, limp on mudflats,
careful not to erase bird foot cuneiform, worm castle, pit,
palimpsest, film of flight. A gull meets your troubled gaze
but sticks to its perch. Your memories a sediment of dream
algal green and red. To hold a tablet of wax imprinted with
marks, mistakes, misremembering, dirt, seed, smoke, gaps,
loss, fossil, soot, salt, sentiment, lines left blank. Follow
her symbiotic step to whose underside all life clings,
burrows, meanders. Oh darling creature! Our feet
touch seabed. Pore, bore, hole, sieved skin.

Mark McKain’s work has appeared in Agni, The New Republic, The Journal, Subtropics, Cimarron Review, Superstition Review, ISLE, and elsewhere. He has published two chapbooks: Blue Sun by Aldrich Press and Ranging the Moon by Pudding House Publications. His visual poetry and collages have been published in Barzakh Magazine, Gulf Stream Magazine, and Tupelo Quarterly. He writes, teaches, and experiences global warming in St. Petersburg, Florida.