there is a man

this is the story i tell myself:
the best lie, the secret that is like hoping,
something like dreaming, like truth
like at the bottom of the ocean,
where the sand makes snake-trails across the seabed.
if you dive down, first filling your lungs with air,
when you brush the sand away,
what hides beneath?

have you heard the cedar waxwing?
a songless bird with voracious appetite
a bird that cannot sing, or speak,
so how is anyone to know?

why the brown old city, ruled by the chaff-men and their straw wives?
why only the dinosaur coelacanth,
why the blackened brick buildings,

why filthy gum, ground into the mica, frozen in concrete,
why thin nylon, held together with machine-chained stitches?

i seem to recall that
i have seen cormorants and have ground cochineal
i walked the cool blue water's edge, collected caracoles,
i stood painted in carnelian, onyx and mussel-shell purple
but here they call it 6,6 dibromo-indigo