Sea Daydreaming

The sea daydreams of land, does it not?

A poem by William Doreski

Although sixty miles inland

I hear the sea gnawing at rock

festooned with barnacles and weed.

Maybe that’s just my pulse angry

with me for ignoring its needs.

Maybe it’s just the grinding

of gears on the local trash truck.

You lust for a glimpse of surf

even more deeply than I do

but you claim to hear nothing

richer than black mud slopping

in our rainy garden, May sprouts

drowning in elemental angst.

We could hop in the car and drive

that sixty miles. The radio

would amuse us with religion

and far-right propaganda

that would so infuriate us

we’d dash headlong into the waves

and rebaptize each other in pastel

greens and blues, dripping and sizzling.

But people flaunting their warped egos

in the ugliest of bathing suits

would sneer at us for aging

so normally, our rebirth on hold,

and the water up to our waists

would feel colder than scripture

underscoring our secret dread.