As If Poem by Don McKay

Play it con brio, a muscular
iamb, a frisbee sizzling -
as if - into no man's land,
its emptiness unfurling fast and
fern-like. Last winter, from a cliff
along the coast, I saw a milky way 
strewn lavishly across the cove,
twinkling in the chop.
It was so cold, and so
some moments before my stiff fingers
unburied the binoculars and found it
to be Eiders. In their black skipper's caps
they scuttled the waves, cold's own creatures,
their white chests flashing in the slant sun,
until, as at a signal, with a move
part gulp, part slurp, each, one after the other,
dove, like this: as if, as if, as
if that surface were the border -
suddenly porous -
between yes and no, so
and not so.