My downy head, dream head, sleep my son safe from the shapes that come from the sea twisting in foam on the lips of the tide but leaving no track where sandpipers run. With long seaweed hair, they snare the children drown them among the stalks of dark kelp. Walking the shore by the sea's green din I gather the white shells of children's eyes to keep in a basket for the mother mourning her child, her mouth full of salt, who follows the moon's path to my back porch and searches the basket for eyes that are hers. I'd hold my son warm against my breath, but fleeing my arms and scoldings, he climbs, sits among spires of the chestnut's white flowers and seeks a sail where the squall draws its line. They leap at his tree like rock-flung spume; chanting, I force them back to the sand. Nighttime they finger the windows with fog and I sing him safe, my pale chestnut bloom. |