Peter,

Our meeting place rests on mere stilts;
Our bedrock, our foundation is sand,
Long ago rock,
Were it not for some pilot fish.

There is a crowded road behind,
An appendage of the sea in front,
And above us nothing as far as we are concerned.

We are in some ways trapped:
We would never make it very far by fin--
They say sharks breed there--and the nearest walk
to shelter that is shelter is longer than we have;

I cannot fly.

What lies below our artifical bedrock,
But actual bedrock,
But an Earth?
What do we accomplish by descending,
But a burial alive?

And that is just if we leave together;
I know you
And I no longer add up to us.

I cannot fly.

I cannot tell the truth.
I cannot truthfully even lie very well,
I could not even lie down
And take the soft rain
As anything less then a pelting,
Accept my needle pricks as anything
Less than whelts.

There is a crowded road behind here,
So what if I walk?
How far would I make it,
Before I became victim
To the crowding cars
That stalk

The next turn.
Down again,
Though there are no stairs;
The tide is high enough at this hour
That I can jump,
Limbs intact.

(I exit through the front door,
Circle
And walk onto the beach).

I can stay down here,
Though light is all
That lights my way
Now that the sun has set.

Remember that indigenous bird
We named Oscar? He's here.
He walks through and on water
Just as awkwardly as on land;
His wing hangs crooked.

He cannot fly.

He is stalking nothing;
There is a calm, a peace about him,
An acceptance. An equilibrium.

He is in some ways a parasite,
A flea on the epidermis of the sea.
His eyes look sad, although
His rigid beak smiles even less than I do.

We are in some ways trapped:
We would never make it very far by fin--
They say sharks breed there--and the nearest walk
to shelter that is shelter is longer than we have;

We cannot fly.