Our dead are lost, aren't they?There is always some mistake:lost down a well, lost in the woods.Lost for words, lost to the world,we'll never make up for lost time.The sheep, the baby, the prodigal son,wandering beyond our imaginings,along the border of our grief and need.

The tide moves mehigher on the crags. My joints crunchlike the mussels and barnacles beneath my boots.I walk a tightrope,from here to another oceanhuddled with archipelagoswhere ancestral canoesset to paddle across the world.I teeter and my hands catchthe water rising cold.The sea we come from is much warmer.

The pelicans paddlein coils of waves and light. Low tidereveals fissures of saltwater and rock.From the smallest crevicescolor insists-colonies of jadeanemones, a purple starfish harvest, barnacleshiding beaks of unbleached linen, black musselbouquets. Between the air and sea,-this, one large prayer.I kneel.

I can believe almost anything-that we beganas thoughts an ocean away carried as seeds or smog or trashacross the waterby capital by will by Godorwe beganas crumbs ferried in the beaks ofwaxwings birds of paradisewe beganas birds ourselves- migrationinstinct.Pins pierce dots and blocks of color to yoke memory to cartography:we've scattered across the world.Tiny planetsmark crumbsentire lives spunalong axes imperceptibleto souls never moved by the wind.

How griefpummels us sharp,breaks upon us to shapethe faces we give the world,the languages we speak in secret.Here, far above the water linepines congregate and meet the ocean.Landscape climaxes against the crash of water.The white walls strikethis fawn height.

when you sleepand I can'tI trace the lines of your facewith my eyeswondering about the waysyou might one day break my heart

There's a saying: those who do not swimdeep in the waters from which they camecannot arrive in the oceans they hope to go.My parents began an ocean awayand arrived in a land of lakes and snow.I've been back to their waters (is it mine, too?)but, wasn't a good swimmer.Everyone spoke underwater; I could onlyhold my breath to listen for so long.I did learn the water carries its own song.

These rocksare the churchwhere I knelt in black worsted silkbeside my mother.Her shoulders sharpbeneath my embrace.My mother: a solid wailing.These rocks are the soilwhere she kneelsbefore the whorls of roses,kneeing before that boxas if it were my father's grave.The closed anemonesoffer their sticky blossomsas the tide washes toward me.Small bits of the coastmeet my skin,scraping my iron onto my knees.

Lola long dead, I still enter her old roomand find her rosary made from pressed rose petals.I cradle it in my palms, perfumingmy hands with her prayers.I don't pray. I just wonderat the fragrance a brown bead can hold,how many petals, how many roses,to make just one bead.

This morning I woke dreaming of a manI'd not undressed in fifteen years.We may as well have written letters with goose quills.Th mind's meddling, curious - why him, why now?Still, it's fun to throw spaghetti against the wall.See what falls, what sticks. Isn't this a gamewe're always losing? The root of diminution.