These are the things I can't tell you:

I

What I can’t tell you,
I can hide in what I can.

II

For example, I can say:
I wish that I lived in the
sea – black, wet, dark,
wet and floating under
white foam and black
waves. I can write: I

wish white foam would
carry my dead form to
wet sand, dark and
floating around and over
your bare feet. I can

dream that the sun
would dry me to black
and brittle meaning, that
memory and deceit would
evaporate beside white
foam. A divulging pyre.

III

If I were a crab, I would
run the wrong way, not
toward the water at all,
but toward the camera.

IV

The last time I went to the beach,
it was a cold and windy day.

I wasn’t dressed to swim, or even
to wade in salt water. Instead

I was dressed to walk along the beach
and look at the colors of plants

made from plastic – ironic colors
designed to contrast with the grey sky.

I was dressed to discover a dead sea lion
on the beach. To see it from a distance,

but not to get too close.