The Dissolving Island

         No signs or announcements
preceded the melting of the beaches.
         You went by way of touch. You
were given to think how gravity
         misshaped the bodies you encountered.

         Clouds skimmed the optic nerve.
The lean shadows of water-striders
         marbled the submerged, sunlit
columns whose ruin rose
         to the querying snouts of fish.

         A litter of shells. Your feet
fit perfectly among them,
         much better than any shoe,
and everywhere the bivalve suck,
         sand's volcanic bubbles.

         You were returning, or, it
seemed a return, for hardly had
         the descriptions arrived when
frogs hopped into the darkness
         croaking of the profit

         that comes of adventure.
Their choir turned gross, inarticulate.
         The wet precincts gobbled up
their expressions, as if greetings
         converged with farewells.

         When the announcement came
to evacuate, the thought grazed you that
         your feeling about starlight had been,
after all, fantasy, not fit to be thought
         the thing it really was, the everyday-less-

         brilliant fires, scrolling backwards,
discounting the dark, dissolving shores,
         declining to chart how it came to be
that the figure and ground changed places,
         that the island slid back to the sea.

Copyright © 2003 David Rigsbee All rights reserved
from The Dissolving Island
BkMk Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission