I search this rock as if it had pockets,

looking for crevices & the absence

that fills them—it’s said a city lies

buried beneath. A vase, a relic, surfaces

as some proof of what hides below

obdurate lava, only to drop & shatter

when mishandled. Everything here complains

of disappearances—everyone sets to scour

the softer layers from the island’s face.

Colorless skies & funnel clouds warn

all away, but we still search without talking.

I bore slow—a barnacle on a whelk.

Search parties struggle to remember,

while the land wraps itself around them.

I see the island in my sleep; I hear its grinding.

Lisca Bianca means white bone & it’s barren

as the sun. I cross from one shore to another,

calling names, both yours & my own—

for thirty minutes or a day—it doesn’t matter.

I used to remember faces like pocks burned

into my skin. Now you look less a face

with every fruitless second, more

a grey smear against a grey shoreline.

Maybe this is all we have— a windy pantomime,

black & white swimsuits, seashells, memory games.

Perhaps there was a boat.  Perhaps it took you away.

The lithograph above is by Bob Tomolillo and titled "Nederland Objects." Check out our interview with Bob. 

The poet, Jeremy Allan Hawkins is a US Fulbright Alumnus and a native of New York. His work has recently appeared in Tin House, Salamander, Hayden's Ferry Review, PANK, and Super Arrow. He currently lives and teaches in France.