Seaweed
Henri Cole


I love the green and brown seaweed
floating freely on the surface of the water,
like a Jackson Pollock, or an enormous bed
in which the world is no longer a place
of rigid structures. I feel drawn to it but also
to the sea with all its gigantic beauty pushing
against us and below. I want to look at you
but I do not. The edge of the beach brims
with light that glides down around our legs
and then down into the folded depths,
from which the waves erupt, toppling us suddenly
into their undulating plash, connecting—
over a vast terrain of ditches—the salt of sweat,
the salt of tears, and the salt of the sea.