Portal

white arch in bleaching
sun, harsh light filling
chalky void that echoes
on a vast and vacant
languishing ocean

to touch is to pull
the years of banshee
winds onto fingertips
and look at ancient
accumulation in
present fingertips

the brush off of ages
under the arch of layers
steps through time
that climb the remnant
the remains to remind
that fish once flew
through bowing grass

they were once then
what leaping deer are now
but at the arch the layers
are all the same
where human hands can
retreat in horror in
feeling the flaky scales
in tracing the dagger teeth
of mariner monstrosities
that always knew hunger

pale portal of powder stone
to pass through layers
and leave the given behind