is the name of the poem I'm not writing anymore.
Instead I write about

standing on hard dock planks as the tide
edges up the pilings. Across the cove a bald eagle,

head and tail blinding white, perches on the osprey platform,
tearing with claws and beak at the fish it has caught.
Finished, it preens, spreads its wings,

lifts into the morning's humid slough. A lone heron

stalks the near shore, jabs its long bill,
searches solitary through mud and muck. If I wave,

it will keen its banshee cry, flap,
flee like a long, lean illusion. A flat-bottomed boat putters

into the cove mouth—a woman leans out,
checks each pot on the line, scoops up with her net
the crabs, circles to check again—

woman, boat, birds, cove a video endlessly looping—

now two swans bank, land, glide mute among the reeds,
bow their heads, dip their bills as one. The morning
leans into me, scoops me into its net, and this is it,

this is the dock to stand on.