Amy Gerstler

Sea Foam Palace

Bubbling and spuming 
as if trying to talk under 
water, I address you thus:) 
Must I pretend not to love 
you (in your present bloom, 
your present perfection — soul 
encased in fleshly relevance) 
so you won't believe me 
just another seabed denizen 
vying for your blessed attention? 
Some of us (but not you) 
are so loosely moored 
to our bodies we can 
barely walk a straight line, 
remaining (most days) only 
marginally conscious. 
We stagger and shudder 
as buckets of   blood or sperm 
or chocolate mousse or spittle 
or lymph or sludge sluice 
continually through us... 

I love the way you wear your 
face, how you ride this life. 
I delight in the sight of you, 
your nervous, inquisitive eyes, 
though I try to act otherwise. 
Being stoned out of thy mind 
only amps up thy fearsome 
brain wattage. Pardon my 
frontal offensive, dear chum. 
Forgive my word-churn, my 
drift, the ways this text message 
has gotten all frothy. How was it 
you became holy to me? Should 
I resist, furiously? Is this your 
true visage, shaken free, flashing 
glimpses of what underlies 
the world we can see? Do not forget me 
murmurs something nibbled 
by fish under the sea. 

After dark you're quick-silvery, 
wet /slick /glistening. Don't 
make me chase you, dragging 
my heavy caresses, a pair of 
awkward, serrated claws, 
hither and yon. Give me a swig 
of   whatever you're drinking, 
to put me in tune with the cosmos's 
relentless melt, with the rhythms 
of dish-washing, corn-shucking, 
hard-fucking, bed-wetting, and 
the folding of   bones of other loves 
into well-dug graves...    may we 
never become lost to the world.