All Things Illegible
Divided by zero, the world upturns itself
as the Gulf opens its wounds to the sun.
The chill grows to a cold breeze
along bubbles of foam fractaling
over broken shell after broken shell,
each scattered piece a fraction
of what I need to know.
Silkened and fragile, the white sand
smudges its shadows—their work done,
like history—and kneads steeper ridges
where the sand greets the gates
of the houses facing the sea,
where seagrass leans against fence slats
as at the edge of the world the last
bleeding inch of sunlight streaks
across the water toward these shadows,
and even the approaching dark darkens,
though when it arrives it has nothing to say.
"All Things Illegible" was chosen by Richard Blanco for Tigertail: A South Florida Poetry Annual, Volume IV