PUERTO DEL SOL
Brian Kubarycz
I came directly to Hell: no worn, dark, moss-clad cityof vaguely masoned bricks; a weeded beach more
spiritless than any metronome; and I have waded
its three-days-round perimeter. I flailed the waves, once,
twice, a hundred stripes. Crouching on shore, my skin
now rubicon, on came the nights. Space compacted me,
the compass shrank down to a pit of iron ice; Holy
Trinity, to You? To Thee? I prayed, Release me.
Seasons pass in but an instant here. Raven flight draws
cuttle line behind it, slowly diffuses its length into
a fretwork murdered in mid air. Must I digest pale fish
scraped with a sharpened flint, or urchins purchased
from the ocean floor? With only lemon shark to guard
me, like a dog, a chain piercing its fin; I lay still,
smoking arbust roots, or chewing their dry skin.
My raft would drift, as would all wind, at will. Yet scrape
and bore of stone beneath contain me in the shallow bay.
A perfect calm besets me now. The sands
no better serve my needs than broken glass. This island
wounds me either way. Nor does a hoary barnacle,
its whole life spent in one decisive step, cling joyless to its host.
I strike them free of stones with other stones. A dozen
make my meal. I eat without sitting, dowse my fire, wander
without shell, just ribs within. I have named, for want of friend,
my very bones, arranged my hands in prayer to see them
meet, combed fingers through my hair, till
they felt different, joined them again in ways that
soon ceased to feel strange, clasped them to my chest.
I know them by their size no more, nor by position.
How many times your grace, and my own strength, detained
me when I thought to dock one off, no longer joined to
the communion. I placed that hand in fire and I let it
close and rest there. In time, I drew it forth, peeled
back the skin, and saw the hand was clean. It was a flaming
sword to me, though one which I could barely lift. With no river,
but just water dripping from the trees, I dipped it in the sea.
No gentleman has ever kissed a hand as I kissed mine, caressed
the silver skin, admired its marvelous designs. I dressed
its wounds and asked it to forgive me, as I would
be forgiven, and taken from this grave beside the brine.