why act so melancholic on the shores of some great or little water
why pummel the brook in such grave anticipation
why demand recession, recension, rectitude
then the river pours over the Petoskey stone
then cameras shoot bullets into waves of nowhere
then glen arbor—peaceful prairie—disembarks
he wakes up on turbid coast
i look over, over, bat my lids windward
ask him how the sand rolls this way
i always knew
i learnt the stories of the mother and her cubs
in a dimly lit, warm brick schoolhouse down the shore
but he didn’t learn, not there
so i built the bridges between manitou and leelanau
demonstrated how they all crusaded
then burnt them with glass castle kerosene
watched the overpasses glow in the sunset
hounded them until their fiery demise, so that
they crumbled—ashen paper tigers—into sweetwater
the powdered sugar grey drank them up
orange extinguished to faraway polyester fog
and i turned to him:
this is how you do it
this is all i ever wanted
this is what i dreamt of
he reached to the bluff:
you take stock in the power of destruction?
you wish to destroy all prior innovation?
no, that’s not it at all
i only want the world to bear how a mother felt
when her cubs drifted to sea
and all she could do was stretch her body long
roar into the westerlies
then descend into blurred and battered sleep