Mission Bay

The man-made bay, its fat weeds

Hidden by brack water, which daily

Floats the picnic-papers out to sea;

Divided in two by a thin spit of sand

Drying its back in the hot sun.

Then the ocean recovers, and the bay

Becomes one flat pond concealing lives

That are just not interested in mine.

In the eyeless eyes of the fish

People from Arizona drive up in white cars,

Suspended like things in a test tube among

The blunt orange buildings lining the shore .

Of this bay where I learned how to speak, to

And of myself, by merely repeating the words

With no more distance than the earth can bear.