I am clouded glass, a long time sea-bound
and carried on waves ancient as the day
God made the waters. Without sound I drowned:
shroud of glass shard tumbled on the sea spray.

The glass that did not shatter, splinter, break,
never met the sea—only dulled edges now
healed in salt like the sour mending of heartbreak.
The heart is only a curio

outside its anatomical bonds.
I am clouded glass, no one can see in,
like a beautiful rare bibelot of Babylon
surviving civilization’s ruin.

Every edge is clipped and smoothed under wave,
here in the open sea I escape the buried grave.