Poem

Fog

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Two fog-horns disagreed About the note of grief. One said it was the reef To which all currents lead,

The other: no horizon, No shadow, and no sun. Off-white, ecru, dun, The sands that shells bedizen

Shuffled beneath our feet. All definition scumbled; Millionaire real-estate Foundered, unmoored.  Down tumbled

The sky, pearl-grey and pale, The sea broke into cloud, (The fog horns owned aloud.) Two hurts stood in grey-scale,

And only a fathom apart, Yet fathomless it seemed, The dissonance, athwart Which no lighthouse beamed.

What wasn’t lost was blurred: Only what was spoken Or what heard, could betoken Driftwood, sand-dollar, bird.

And where erosion shelved, Erasure of pier and plinth, The interval hung unresolved In a far-flung minor seventh.