Sonar
       

So near the skin you hear the blues,
swimming through your mother’s ken.
There’s the spine’s wisp of smoke
the millimeter crust of bone rests
its globe upon. So far

some clouds obscure the continental body,
a cypress wrapped in fog.
The transceiver sweeps the room,
searching for the little swaddled

drum. When they found my father
buried in his pale cathedral, they said
he was having the time of his life,
that phrase exactly, so nearly true.
And yet. So far

our vision is a sound three times
beyond the highest note, a wave
your bones reflect. A snowy light veils
your face, perhaps a gift from him.

His hands were calm as ice, his eyes
fixed perfect. So near: see the corneas
nearly domed? Which comparison does life begin
I wonder—so near, there’s the pulsing
star, there’s the blizzard.

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Copyright © 2012 Andrew Allport All rights reserved
from the body | of space | in the shape of the human
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission