Ghazal: By the Sea
        for Kim Bridgford

We always wanted a house by the sea.
A place to grow old together, by the sea.

My father's house, in Guantanamo, stolen.
He still tastes arroz con cangrejo, served by the sea.

That whitewashed house in Greece, perched on a bluff,
dream home to tourists. Views of migrants, drowned by the sea.

Those hovels in Mexico turned into condos.
No fisherman left: to be nourished by the sea.

We looked into the Maldives, imagined a paradise
slowly vanishing, sands swallowed by the sea.

Poets love islands—as if only love, and not war,
can be so utterly surrounded by the sea.

Yet the wars continue: in the West Bank
a child blown to bits, playing by the sea.

What else to do but imagine flight, the respite
of seagulls, their harmless dive-bombing. By the sea,

it almost seems possible change is near.
Our greed seems small when we stroll by the sea,

even innocent. In rainbow leis, once we took vows
that seemed to rhyme with the palms by the sea;

a luckier child builds sandcastles, and buries
his uncles up to their necks by the sea.

The cottage in Provincetown, bought in foreclosure.
Its last owners dead of AIDS, in graves by the sea.

Today, we rest on the beach, dreaming our silly
dreams. We accept the lies made up by the sea.

We look to the horizon; behind us, beyond the dunes,
a field gathers dew. Waves lap. We end and begin by the sea.

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Copyright © 2018 Rafael Campo All rights reserved
from Comfort Measures Only
Duke University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission