Drunk as a persimmon

on the wine of Cana or myself, I couldn’t tell—

the old pain and the old dream mingled

and seasickness threw kisses

in shapes upon the wall like shells 

upon the shore outside the conch-

shaped hall in whose pearled hum I danced 

as if my feet were small 

and free of gravity as sea lice.

When above the palms, horns, drums and silks

I heard a creature high in moss-

tangled eucalyptus cry for milk—

a creature not my own, yet still 

my milk let down.

I looked up and it locked me

in a stare, half-child, half-marsupial,

that transfixed me on the scallop

of the terraced white hotel it squatted on 

until sure that I had seen

it dove back into the lagoon 

like a weasel chasing an eel 

ever further into the nature of oblivion.