the thirty percent*

the waves
knock at your door
the sea crests over
your raft
and invites itself in
you're wet
over every inch
so you squeeze
your hands
and watch the ocean
bead out your pores
and yet
you feel dirty
a fraud
a white lie
that has turned grey
from overuse
you straddle over the abyss
but you lay still
under heaven's weight
a mistress
for the gods
who sometimes forgets
you forget sometimes
who you're trying
to please

you swallow
for the first time
in what seems like
a long time
your throat
contracts like a
highway
cracks emerge
in the turns
broken pieces
fall into your
stomach
dirt swept into
a pot
you're drying up
from the inside out
a scarecrow
on the high seas

you sit there
and the horizon bobs
up and down
like bait
a finish line
that runs the race
and runs away
you sit there
and you sit
everywhere
stuck between
the sea and a faraway place
neither a fish
nor a bird
but a body

made mostly of water
and a pinch
of dust




* Seascape (1969), by Gerhard Richter.