smuggler’s bonnet

the place my fingers gladly guard
snugglers’ cove, my cloven hoof
woody and strong, it toughens me,
a stain that’s impossible to shift

the long chain of life lies down in me
space station that soothes the hemless sea
and the cat likes to sleep on my little headland
this crook, the limb that invented home
this narrow fissure in the bone
above a private beach, and others like it,
domesticate everything within reach

to make a country of myself I swim
but my strokes never stitch the grieving water
albatross wings follow me
like flies tied to a flock of strings

for years I’ve worked my passage home
with the sounds of the sea always chafing the shore
when the moon relinquishes its bone
I lay my eggs above the tide
a country full of strangers

the sleeper cell awakes in me
a dog stiffening on the leash
a meerkat, a ferret could have me now
collapsing the wet sand into the sea
for solitude reproaches
my heart approaches again and again
with charcoal fingers its inbuilt cousin
pushing a flower of soil in my mouth
lining me with humus
like a grave turned inside-out

Cathoel Jorss