An Evening on the Pontoon

You are water
the murky glisten
of salt piles that rise
and collapse, wading
the fish below, sprouting
their heads in your tide
transition, a nauseous battle
between the clutches of deep
ocean and air

There is a memory in your eyes -
pearls that arrive, wet, from mouths
of hollow clams within -
under the surface - and I see it
because it is me
as much as you
as much as we are washed-up
shells - old ieas,
aches, losses, passing bodies,
these stamps, images
that are nothing above
and everything below

It all cuts like water
and lands us at stranger shores