The Head Will Continue To Sing

SONNET FOR ZOE 

“Why was the ocean angry at us?,”

you ask, fingering the pebbled break

that punctures the sea wall. “Why?,” you fuss.

A pocked slab, concrete flakes,

and the powdery bone-smell of mishap

roughen thought: pitched by the sea,

big bad wolfing whitecaps

hurl rocks and winter’s debris.

Now August’s a liquid sheet, a strait

of haze dampening a dug-up lawn

where worms inch, as workmen estimate

the redress of walls with twine, drawn

taunt to vibrate in the burn-off of mist.

“Why?” Your smallness, the right to persist.