Grunion have convictions. Coming up out of the sea
Without a doubt, they clear the moon’s surface of wave
And salt water completely. They are scarcely able to
breathe
In that unhindered light. Even in their silver
Straight jackets they have believed from the beginning
In this particular tide, this particular black beach.
They have seen, before it ever occurred, the glycerin
Eye burning on dry land. How else could they come
With so much certainty?
Think of one egg left behind, buried like a drop
Of oil in the dark sand. Even before the eye in that egg
Is a black dot, even before the heart is a red grain
Sunk in its tiny bubble, every detail of the first high tide
Of next summer and the summer beyond that
Is waiting, caught and held tight inside. Imagine
The whole heaven of the full moon a year from now,
And the black wind over the sea-to-come and the salt air
Cupped in the conch not yet crystallised,
All held in their entireties inside that jelly shell.
What if there were an instrument small enough to locate
And expose all the elements of the future spawnings
Contained in a single grunion gene?
Then from here we could watch next year’s moon dripping
clear,
Changing its white focus, and we could examine
The sea birds not yet born waiting on the bluffs
Along the bay and hear the sounds of potential crabs
Scratching in their caves. From already having seen,
We could believe in the hard pull of the new children’s
Children’s children up that beach.
And what if the speck of a grunion egg just beginning
Should be planted inside the embryo heart of our next
child born?
Then wouldn’t he know from the start how he was to rise
Like silver fruit in a swollen tide, how he was to start up
And break through elements? Wouldn’t he know in his
lungs,
Before it happened, the sudden changing dimension
Of his own breath? Wouldn’t he understand how he
was bound
To decide to head straight for what he already knew
was coming,
And couldn’t he tell us everything we need to know
About convictions like that?
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