There are panels of sky
as good as forgotten,
Evans' gelatin folds of Florida
circa 1934. The line of sky is dark at first
where the gulf lifts it,
then comes to me like a halo
around the palm tree with its neck bent,
its spray of branches leaning out of frame
as if to flee. Its roots pull
at sand, as if to say,
this is what it takes.
I'd believe, if not for the way
my breath catches,
if not for the wild faint
sleep's become. The palm's branches
are spears left
where they've fallen
in the dirty sand, too heavy
for the tide to take them. Where the neck bends,
cut branches—like stubble on a chin
as seen from below—seem to ask
something of the photographer,
something not washed away
in the chemical bath. The shadow of the trunk
just underlines—means to prove the existence
of the world. It's three o'clock
and the latticework of 1934
is pulling around me in this light
is pulling around me in this light
as if to say my god, my god,
a hymn sung by infidels to believers
as a way to ask for water.
