Names

If the sea is a cathedral, a tide pool is a chapel. Sculpins dart under the wind that blusters their cupped oceans. Sculpted by wave on rock, their pockets of salt grow thin from the rain, the suffocating fresh water. Sculpin and hermit crab and limpet endure the sea's absence, the lost comfort of constant temperature, while the unconceived sky drums the roof over their pooled world with litanies of unbreathable torrent. Christ, I have no praise for you. Beyond saying a vodka-wrecked troller and shacks the color of the desire to die, beyond saying predatory snails that glide on their bellies like the penitent, flexing their borers, beyond saying seraphim that bicker exactly like gulls, the shells that are my ears sing no psalms except I can name many small creatures in the world of a tide pool. Christ, have mercy on all things that drown in air, I have no praise for you. I say the tide: Tide! Tide! Tide! I say:Ebb! Flood! Ebb! Flood! I always start with "Ebb!" I always end with "Flood!" "Names" is from a sequence titled "Hard Weather Prayers."