BLACK RELIEF 

I went there alone.
The night watchmen
in the cannery
had an iron chant.
There were no fish left,
they canned wax strips

there instead, salted cut
leather. Tangled lines
were strung across
the water. Wild business.
I wanted someone
to see the end

of the world with,
slick with alien light.
The soldiers deserting
each wired schooner,
the greening mass
that filled the decade.

AXIOM OF GHOSTS

Sheila said the ghost
had been there all afternoon

up against the wet straw pile
as she’d been folding my sheets.

It was itself a damp lump,
a smooth bulb worn down by rain.

We dragged it to the promontory
and put it down into the sea

and while we were there we
polished the glazing and trimmed

and lit the wicks. The sea convulsed.
The ghost did not come back,

though we watched for it,
ready with a net and knife.

Sheila, she looked infinite,
sunk in the glass wedges

that bordered the lamp.
The double aspects opening

on the dim thick sun that hung
like a wax seal, like a dried pepper.