Avoid The Narrows Poem by Warren Falcon

for Nima

I am much taken by one long
thumbnail a bright star on dark
water forcing attention toward Nova

so forgive if I minister
to or try beside the
distant thigh and mine

thumbs on various skins
stretched tight as if such
stretchedness is the purpose
of rivers for a night in wet
summer chaste as I am (of
currents made) breathing
into what attention means
in the space the small of
the back imagining thumbnail's
trace an ancient script in
darkness as is the dark as
dark waves spray the bow
flow upon me



flow upon me now

I beg

keep

bless

the wound the
burning

the thigh where
is

this pressing
still



just the thing
to talk of stars

baby seals play
now sun on gray
rocks wet

my head
tucks in
a niche
of stone
natural there
ages old to warm

to press the thigh

mine there too
that impress of
presumptions of
massive forces
compressing
into upon always
already decaying
things such are
the living sparked
imaginings
barnacles,
seaweed

I am not new to such need

I am not immune to the worry



upon my chaste
return sunburned
churned by the
Atlantic I will have
discovered a haunting
sound again

an animal
music of the air

the lungs

screams really

gulls falling
by arrows of
blue which

blue

saturate
sky and
sea to
learn the
heart again



to learn the heart again

avoid the narrows
at the island's end
where feet are easily
mistaken for doves

there large currents
beckon/compel them
to descend