The Bay

Full tide at this inland bay. Say
six inches of see-through water
at the far end of some exhausted waves
where little fishes crowd together
under an immensity of cloud and sky. It's
the sort of backwater where the glare of oblivion
overstates its case. No one's here
but a single fisherman
knee-deep in the horizon's curve. He's
using his shadow to look for flounder,
bent double over his body's shade.
There's an oyster graveyard, salt-grass,
and a sunken hull still hanging on
to the archetype of its shape.
                                         Blazing
down through dried-out gullies,
...