The Horizon Line

I spoke not of Campana's woman
of Genova, who brought him seaweed
in her hair, and sea wind on her skin—
your curls swung wet and whippy,
the surf took over your ankles
and knocky knees, your hair opened,
the tide calmed, and the farther you swam
the more you were sun-cuts on the sea
and I panicked to lose sight of you,
less than a dashed shadow disintegrating
into opaque radiance where sea and sky
shrink to a seam of life continuous
with our own. In your own good time
you brought back wind in your hair,
her hair, seaweed smelly, hot,
wind shot with salt and seaweed
dripping from that hair, as if
such disappearance and return
were your nature. When you flopped
on our fleecy blanket,
         tart water seeds
                   popped from your hair.
                             I tasted them.
--W. S. Di Piero