The Wave
–Matt Rasmussen
He saw it everywhere.
The inevitable folding of a wave,

the patient flood of lava
traveling toward him.

He saw birds die in flight,
felt a leaf release itself in his stomach.

We become rock, he thought.
The sun, somewhere, is always rising

and setting. The earth bubbles,
driving a volcanic neck

smoking from the ocean.
No island is an island,

he said. There is no new land,
just the same body broken open.

Photo by John Westrock on Unsplash