He stabbed through winter and back
in a place of great beauty; he stabbed
through water; he kicked his legs through the waves.

The water was freezing despite or because of
a pink sky at dusk but some surfers stayed out there.
The waves were closing out now;

a board snapped in two. Above the so rounded
white noise of the breakers, that crack
was like a whip of light and the world

went very thin. Well, seven hundred dollars
of his own pain but I didn’t know that guy;
and there’ll always be pain. The central

problem was rather time than all the little injuries
that make us up, the gasps, the sorrow, the world
suddenly and for no reason making itself thinner

than what we could reasonably hope for: Life.
The waves were fury; to be consumed by the possible
meant simply to be lucky, even in love.