Morning pried apart, a shell
of paled oyster, grayed blue-white
calcified spit. Broth of a chill
muscle. Day still raw. A clot
of sun, milky grit, rolls
higher as it dries. It lights
the street. It pearls a fluid wall
of glass and steel to calm flats
of shine, drowns a rooftop’s rails
in high-tide gold. In air. I set
my old beginnings on soft hills
of private ice. How long till guilt
rounds into fault? Bedsheets fall
in rimmed waves, in fields of salt.