In Step

Excerpt

I follow footsteps, the old dead, stricken

by the unchanging likeness of the shore

and a moon in perpetual eclipse.

The sea, caught between tides, cathartic flood

tides or tides of blood, beats solemn and flawed.

In step, I draw the same difficult breath,

barely in and out, but not out of step,

timepiece for the long forgotten. The tock

of heart against lung hovers, fails, repeats

itself in expected revolutions,

a crow's spiral at the revelation

of carrion. The footsteps of the old

dead plot a course etched in sun-fused sand, bonedry,

brittle and temple deep, safe only

as