Sea Glass
for Susanne
Vacant eyes that gazed timelessly
toward the Lido and past Punta Sabbioni
now shallow hollowly between sugared lumps
on erased faces. No need to journey back
to see what is said passing years have done
when we can twiddle up the tears of things
in pictures on our phones. Why is blue
glass so treasured over coke bottle green?
Like shards of memory roughened soft,
all stinging glare and slicing edges
polish to glowing lozenges, as if the sea
spat half-sucked candies upon the strand.
Blue-bottled magnesium milk chalked guts
with a powdered soup of ancient sea lime
to cure the mal-de-mer, and trash
that’s now prized so rare once littered
everywhere. No ticking tock burned off
stolid Venetian faces that had stared
impassively upon some million tides
but our new acid smaze. So don’t glibly blame
the flowing years themselves. The moon
drags oceans back and forth, like a woman
rubbing clothes over stones by its pearly glow,
but it’s ground grit itself, gently swirling
in eternal swaying wash, that grinds
smashed garbage into cherished gems.
toward the Lido and past Punta Sabbioni
now shallow hollowly between sugared lumps
on erased faces. No need to journey back
to see what is said passing years have done
when we can twiddle up the tears of things
in pictures on our phones. Why is blue
glass so treasured over coke bottle green?
Like shards of memory roughened soft,
all stinging glare and slicing edges
polish to glowing lozenges, as if the sea
spat half-sucked candies upon the strand.
Blue-bottled magnesium milk chalked guts
with a powdered soup of ancient sea lime
to cure the mal-de-mer, and trash
that’s now prized so rare once littered
everywhere. No ticking tock burned off
stolid Venetian faces that had stared
impassively upon some million tides
but our new acid smaze. So don’t glibly blame
the flowing years themselves. The moon
drags oceans back and forth, like a woman
rubbing clothes over stones by its pearly glow,
but it’s ground grit itself, gently swirling
in eternal swaying wash, that grinds
smashed garbage into cherished gems.
