Lost In the Surf
The idea I’d been trolling for
was hooked just short of the shore.
As soon as I could see
the grey beast from the deep
just beneath the last line
of the breaking surf,
the thing broke free
along a different ledge of thought.
Too little lip I’d caught.
O I had plenty of words--
curses, epithets, adjectives, verbs--
both for myself and the grey shape
gone back to the dark sea,
leaving me unbalanced
with no upright tug on the line.
I’d been tied to thought’s pull,
then flaked from the wall
like the cheapest paint.
I know that too much lip defines
a dictator posed in profile
on a Roman balcony;
but too little lip left me short
of dancing in the sun
with the coveted catch held up
from the dark womb of thought,
an alive and wriggling thing
pendant from
an invisible string
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