Nantucket Sound

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1

The day is overcast.
Our boat drenched with dew.

We shove off
and glide with the current,
slowly away from Viking Rock,
where Leif Erikson
once ran aground.

An osprey nest
at the first bend.
Clams thick in the sandbars.

                  beads of dew vanish
                  in the first morning breeze—
                  an egret on shore

2

Our boat,
the Mono no aware,^[1]
passes by ships moored
to the left and right.

We try not to leave a wake,
no regrets
no frustrations.
Yet I turn and say,
“I haven’t gotten over
the people I’ve lost.”

I still remember
my mother’s last breath.
And the one that came after.

                  dry desert blossoms—
                  an apple tree bends above
                  the poppy garden

                  a frost-covered lawn—
                  I sit on the couch where she
                  decided to die

3

We covered her body
with a white sheet,
but drew it back
to remove the rings
from her fingers.

Covering her again,
my arms remembered
a familiar motion.

Eat.
Drink.
This is my blood
and my body.

4

From the mouth of the river,
full throttle on the open sea.

Three miles out,
we reach the tire reef where,
thirty feet below,
schools of
scup and bass gather.

                  keep the line taut—
                  I bounce the lead weight on the
                  rocks and sand below

                  wait for the bite—
                  I lift the rod tip high to
                  set the hook

5

On my fingers
the saltwater feels slippery,
a diluted runoff of
blood and tears.

                  black-winged terns
                  skim above the flowing tide—
                  sand eels in the surf

In this cicada-shell world,
there is no catch and release.
Only the slashing knife
and bleeding out
in the live well.

Sashimi scup
and chunks of bass
fried in hot oil.

Seeking.
Finding.
Crying.
Meoggo sanda (먹고 _산다).
“I eat and live.”

6

Our faces burn
with the bright wind that
thinly spreads over the water.
A brilliant ma—
a breath of tide and sand,
a holy interval in the catching
and killing.

Pulled
into the rip off Popponesset,
sliced open against
the edge
of the moon,
our boat trembles
in the flow,
a lobster buoy
severed from its trap
floats unattached.

                  seagulls circle and scream—
                  the wave that came through last
                  year is here again

The ancient
current
returns
and waits
for the day
I walk
on water.

Surely, that day
will come.
But not now.
And maybe
not tomorrow.

7

I know the dead
are not dead.
And that this pause
is for my good.

Yet I feel joy
in the wind and waves,
even as I hear
the shoals
call from below.

8

The breeze picks up,
the waves tip white.
We reel in our hooks
and point north to shore.

Through the white water,
beyond the sharks
and the seals,
past the cormorants
and children on the beach,
upriver through the nervous water
of a thousand peanut bunker
swimming for their lives,
there waits
someone
to tie us tight.

9

Dear God in Heaven,
I fear you’ve made a world
too beautiful
for me to understand.

Were it not for
darkness and pain,
would I ever know
the smallest truth
about anything?

10

On the dock
my knife
cleans the catch.
Sharp steel
tight against the bone.

For my wife,
flounder livers
in vinegar.
For my son,
fish and chips.
For the crabs in the river,
heads, skeletons, and innards.

At my side
you ask,
“Do you have any meat?”

                  sea snails trailing—
                  rosehips fragrantly shade the
                  oysters along shore

Someday soon,
We will eat fish
over your fire.

But for now
please leave me here
below the line.

                  Lexington, Massachusetts
                  July 10–September 20, 2023

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^[1] The “sadness of things,” ªâªÎªÎäîªì.