To Hart Crane

Matthew
Gasda

Enclosed in seams of white, the song’s ellipse
Of choral blues and diaphonic waves
Evades the ocean’s will, the rhythmic tides,
And brings us to the sea’s periphery.

And you comb moons of coral in your hair,
With muted flowers plucked beneath the floors,
Of sealed stars, suspended in your tides,
And lifted in the tally of your love.

For the scarred ports of death open to you,
And wind you into light across the sea…
Of vast white circuits silent in the sound
Of your interwoven many-folded shell.

And in the crossings of our syllables,
I close with you in fragments of the surf…
The flow of all your sea-born voices fuse,
Into the imaged echo of your eyes.