MICHAEL METIVIER

MARE COGNITUM

Lemon moon upon Azores and finbacks 
body harmonized to pitch and yaw
sleeping above deck beside your fellow sailors

now that the war is over

now that you have been fired upon from a castle 
and buried a man at sea
chased rebs for three years along the ancient gyres 

	coald ship 
	coald ship
	coald ship

///

Lemon moon above the 42nd parallel 
An ocean away from the Market Street
mansion where you hid your initials in plaster 
	
When I look at your heavens the work of your fingers
the moon and stars which you have set in place 

Here is the sea vast and spacious teeming
with creatures beyond number

Every living creature that moves
with which water swarms

///

Sea of nectar

		Sea of fecundity

			Sea that is known

to me as fed by the waters

of the Deep and the Haw
of the Little and the South and the Black
of the Zamfara and the Benue
of the Mersey and the Clwyd
of the Tâmega and the Guadalquivir
of the Nashua and the Charles

of the nameless brook beyond
	my window doing its own ageless part
		to combine 
		and recombine
		to become known
		and unknown

///

Lemon moon, Atavus, coald ship

ever in orbit, you
	who declared yourself in the rain
		at the foot of Orange Street

when I look at the work 
of your fingers	on the pages
with which water swarms 

and salts and suffuses
the moon and stars 
		which you have set in place

for us, O father
here within the hull
of my ribs is

	the sea of nectar
	the sea of fecundity
	the sea that now can never 
	be unknown

here you are home.