Sea Level

So this is what the ocean has been pushing across the table at us


all these years—

the dry, white spot that opens like a moon at the back of the throat


the quieted tongue, the last of all words.

Our ever-faithful dinner guest—who kept her wet fingers lined up at the edge


of the world, who politely folded and refolded her napkin—stops 


passing the peas, leans back quietly into her chair to watch

what we'll do now. She's done, the sea quits, stands without comment on the shore, is


just another dumb, beautiful animal considering the cliff, the final leap 


back into itself.

At least say we were among those who kept the conversation up for so long—


you and I handed always and never back and forth again and again

while our arms distressed the surface.


Let's just say the table was too large, that we lifted the heaviest dish


and got tired—

that only the ocean knows how to spoon salt over a great distance


under any kind of light. 

--"Sea Level" by Kim Van Voorhees

Mrs. Bell, you're finally published! I was doing calculus drawing the polar curve of r=4sin2x when I suddenly remembered to google you! I listened to you reading it and I read it again (and again) and your poem is just lovely--I am officially your fan. I am going to write it in my journal tonight and will probably be very tempted to rip it out and keep it in my pocket or something--or I might even memorize it. But that's okay with you, right, because I'm your fan? 

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