Bolinas

You'd think you'd know what it was--
light trapped in the weeds, waist high and wading,
know the bristly green or the flowers at your feet.

The day's drained into water--frost and cold breath--
and the briny road hooks through town
like a stretch of sharp flowers. White, cylindrical, they're

the handwriting you forgot, pure and showy,
a constant glare, and then the bay, calm and blank,
a grey blur that looks thrown away.

As if light and lifting weren't enough,
you'd want a fog coming over the road,
anonymous, made to order. So forget

the lightness inside you, the tinny air,
it all dissolves the way color dissolves
or a voice filters through water,

salt, then bleach, then still.
So call it a mixed vision, the steep cliffs,
the empty sea, chart the elements

like sadness wrapped in wind and first leaves.
You're what's left--a cold havoc, bright hour--
you're the white eye of spring.

Joelle Biele