High Tide: As If Dorothy Wakes In Oz

I asked the ocean to show me; peel back my eyes
and scrub them clean with her sand, her salt
so that, cleansed, I’d know the size of the universe.
So that, illuminated, I could dream again.

Instead, she grabbed me ‘round the waist; eased
me into her vast hollows and in darkness,
blessing began. First feet, then knee, and hip.

She, lovely incubus; suckled breath, gathered rib
and dust, capillaries red and bursting;
until a thousand galaxies fixed themselves on her tongue:
the sky opened up
cherry blossoms in Chile; holy, lost
and, just then; whispered,
“You are the size of the universe.”

At high tide, she left the world on my lips;
Woke me, purified.

Grace

Younger, she
the poet wrote of
unraveling
all things good
holy, true, and right. Before.
Before. Before she knew
what it meant
to beg--
force you to lift
dead weight,
untangle her limbs from your floor
and hold your lungs
against hers, in and out
pleading breaths to slow.

The godless, even I,
know prayer in crisis.
In the suffering, out compassion
lungs filling with
all things good
holy, true, and right.