Like a seal
in broken sleep,
cold the moonlight;
lies on salt ice,
I let the sea
work. The floodtide
under my skull,
plugged by the full
March moon, under-
cuts the barrier
shelf, folds back, and
opens a lead
to my forehead.
The moon waves in.
Adrift, and washed
by the equinox,
I let the sea
work. Under me
the shelf calves off;
my sleep ebbs East,
offshore. Sure, for
once, I am neither
mad nor dead, I
dive awake from
night's snowbirds rise;
and I count them,
white and moonstruck,
climbing, beyond
Orion, to the moon
behind my eyes.