From Volume 37: A poem by Colin Dekeersgieter

THE ANTHOLOGISTS

By Colin Dekeersgieter

You are roiling in the newest star,
a constant measure of the law
of fading. This fissure of the night, toggled by Doppler,
arpeggiates the ocean to sway the suzerain moon
until she gives the sheet over to the bright tone.     
This is jurisdiction, this being in the water’s body
as the winking beacon of a heartless light,
an indivisible orbed orison coursing
over the origin of the incubatic purling

housed in the manner, handless hands, and endless air of what you are.
That is you. It is yours. You’re celeste and citadel. Your harp and chapel.
Palm frond, sea grape, beach plant, dolphin, shark fin, marlin,
they are all granted descants in your work’s brimmed compendium.
So I will be an old man beside our sister and her sons
curating your composition until I am my own coda’s hymn:
This is him. This is him. The fluid crane. The warm pooled waters.
The wind on a dug in bottle’s bore, its bassy tone, and the bottle.
A son with sand in his hands will say, This is uncle. This is uncle.
Two fists of sand, a thousand psalms, a song for all your unsung traits.