By Diane Kendig
Yellow waves hunker to payn’s gray ice,
dead fish lie like pewter.
The iguana, platypus, and spiny anteater’s
Lovely ugliness of endurance.
Like the animals who have survived,
Its frozen form preserves past epochs.
Broken and mis-set, a thick-seamed femur
Hideous and strong, bears more weight.
My eye separates what seems solid:
Layers of gray from layers of white.
The gulls, nasty clowns, wrestle
The seascape, lose, move into town.
The wind roughhouses the reeds cemented
Into the cove, breaks their necks.
Not the largest hand can shatter
The door to this water.