What is this chasm you uncover in me
that hungers for the formless fullness of you?

  Who are these Ishmaels in me
    of Genesis - thrown to the wilderness,
  of Melville - drawn to the sea,
  never content with your works:
  not silhouettes of pelicans patrolling at dawn,
   nor whitecaps aglow with setting sun,
  but questing for some primordial matrix
  and thirsty to slake my amnesia with amniotic brine,
  yet tickled to feel beneath my feet
  the slipping sand you wash away?

Cast into tides, lost and connected,
I sway in your dance with the moon.
In your silence I wait 
for your soundless word
to echo up the abyss between us.

September 9, 1990