Binoculars

My eyes belong to the ocean
To the infinite plateau of blue
Where whales bathe barnacled bellies in the sun
And break tails on soft waves of sea.
Beneath cloudless skies, endless summer days
That is where my eyes belong.

I remember sunsets
Staring from the sand
As sky and sea caught flame,
Burned and turned to ash.
I remember sequinned skies
The unblinking cataract of the moon
That carved its milky path in the sea
As white as winter breath.

Behind the thick foliage of hanging clothes
In a cupboard untouched, I wait like a hidden thing:
A whale beneath a wave, a star beneath a sunset cloud
A moon beneath mist.
But with eyes tightly closed, I return in a dream
To the land’s edge, to the sky, to the flexing muscle of the sea
Where my eyes yearn, ache, long to be.