Ocean Sound

I left the mountains for ocean

sound. Every year I do this, chasing a childhood 

glimpse so bright

and terrible it wakes me still, sends me 

to pace across damp 

earth breathing in stars until it calls again

with gill-leap otter-slip seastar-grip

I find myself ankling in its stony slide 

shoulders so worried-smooth I 

mistake them for 

my own. What is it

that tugs from its depths with faces

so fearfully familiar 

barnacle-fingered kelp-wrapped shell-cracked  

just like 

yet not like this ungainly bone-propped-up sack

wading me toward a briny pull

so feathered it runs 

on silver feet through my hands

while oyster-catch whale-breach cliff-reach

the breath in my throat it flies 

low over water

wind-whipped into clouds that repeat

inside-inside-inside-inside the sea swells

inside your heart