Before we touched Medusa's head we felt the soft wreckage

of the waves on our bodies, rode with the foam netting and un-netting

us, the stiff trees so strange in their separateness, as if grafted

to a fear we couldn't see. Above us,

stars like pass-words, access-codes glittering in zones of the unhidden.

Above us: clouds scattering in horrorless dissonance, sun untouched by footsteps.

We didn't know what it meant to be so savagely self-sealed.

This is the relentless dream, this the admission ticket that can't be given back.

As there are cardinal points that can't be changed, machines that are programmed

to do just one thing, and one thing only, as there are xeroxes of other xeroxes,

lighter or darker but basically the same,

as there are screens unaltered by the wishes that move through them,

and scenes that can't rescind their harsh configurations,

so, too, we remember from within our rigidity now:

                rush

of waves            mapless gatherings of leaves.

We think: That midnight was. The brights between. Plummeting sunshine,

blue amaze.

The waves move through each other without hurting each other.

The sand unbinds itself slowly. Sea roses open.

The minutes impart their vertigo

as summations are given, retracted, then given again.

A child dreams she's swimming through a wall, and the wall is white water.

Eyes move back and forth beneath closed lids.

We think:           cloisters of envy           threshold            shooting star.

—Laurie Sheck