Once, living as a seal,
I leapt the margins of waves
into sunsets made green by lichen.
You buy that? The tiny plants,
the angle of the sun, the seal?
Atlantic City tidies wishes
into the margins of waves
nobody watches or they’d
miss their dice roll. If you
lichen on Facebook the box
unlichens, living living living
on the margins really singular
for the green electricity
that demands for itself, the seal
no-friended on account of
gamboling on lichen—it could be
algae without the fuel–
and myself an impersonator,
a drop of oil in the shape
of the surface gasping
for what I can get,
a sunset, a wave, a lorgnette
to see the cards being dealt.
I can swim into the sunset
anthropomorphized or not,
the margins set regardless
of perspective, the seal
sunk, the lichen changed
into phosphorescence
as if a wave goodbye.
Adieu! the seal says with its tail,
an extension of its waist. The waves
okay that, the sun “likes.”
Photo: Claire Holt.
