Colossus

I imagined a wave, great and terrible
And in the shape of myself. But perfectly still
Like the Joan Eardley painting, bruising
And of great mood – without motion.
For days I called you the colossus,
Carried your form nervously
In footsteps wider than my own,
Shadows stretching out ahead.

Plath wrote about dredging silt from her throat,
Scattering it like ash. There is a negative space
Along the rivets of this wash-land where sand
Cools like obsidian under pillars of steam,
Rivers of white basalt. And cowering, all of it
Laid low before that foaming scar in the sky,
Clarified in separate states of time.

I turn to face you, my day-time nauseate,
Haughty afternoon god, shifting days across
Fingernails like clouds in the window.
You taught me fear and how to dance,
That love is to be crushed, to see is to know
Faces in the shingle. I turned to you
And saw oil in the beachhead below,
Stone-bleached, full of stars. Staring back.