Internal wave

Dense dark blood dies here,
lacking impulse toward a door.
A busy flood to compress, chattering:
Where’s the exit? breath? light? fuel?

Could someone touch the place
where the heart begins? One beat.

The sea layers itself into currents
of thick denial and open need.
Towering surges travel the boundaries
of those currents; diastole, systole:
kiss clean air.

Joanna Wiebe, 1984