Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Luke Davies

Wave Function, Bondi

Wave Function, Bondi

Wave Function, Bondi

I

I am floating or falling. I am light
as a feather, or even my thumbprint

fills the sky. The water near shore
shines silver on a cold Spring day.

A helicopter punctuates the air
and I imagine, further out, there are fish

drifting mindlessly in subtle currents
deeper than green goes. Fish made from atoms

streamed and condensed to the hard steel bliss
of shape; fish

of whose precise location
I am dreamily uncertain.

I imagine the bends: how pain swoops
to painlessness the way smack takes you

away from yourself. Vertigo. I feel bubbles
of nitrogen fizz distantly in my cool toes.

I imagine fins, or changes in current
surmised, in the dark, as fins.

Yet the heat in my head and the light
on my eyes are the same blue day’s

convergence. This is a miracle of sorts,
a fleeting miracle between horizons.

The same blue day, one world below
and one above and one world here and now.


II

I am a wooden boat.
From the wooden deck of me
my anchor drops away
to sound the fathomless sea.

The mossy chain gains speed
uncurling through my hands.
On the wooden deck of me
I stand between two lands

and neither made of land:
the lands of sky and sea.
Deep in the wind my kite
unfurls transparently.

It reaches far away —
this kite is quite a thing;
and yet I touch the sky
because I touch this string.

And touch the ocean floor,
that ache of dull content.
But the wooden deck of me
is the place of measurement.
Close

Wave Function, Bondi

I

I am floating or falling. I am light
as a feather, or even my thumbprint

fills the sky. The water near shore
shines silver on a cold Spring day.

A helicopter punctuates the air
and I imagine, further out, there are fish

drifting mindlessly in subtle currents
deeper than green goes. Fish made from atoms

streamed and condensed to the hard steel bliss
of shape; fish

of whose precise location
I am dreamily uncertain.

I imagine the bends: how pain swoops
to painlessness the way smack takes you

away from yourself. Vertigo. I feel bubbles
of nitrogen fizz distantly in my cool toes.

I imagine fins, or changes in current
surmised, in the dark, as fins.

Yet the heat in my head and the light
on my eyes are the same blue day’s

convergence. This is a miracle of sorts,
a fleeting miracle between horizons.

The same blue day, one world below
and one above and one world here and now.


II

I am a wooden boat.
From the wooden deck of me
my anchor drops away
to sound the fathomless sea.

The mossy chain gains speed
uncurling through my hands.
On the wooden deck of me
I stand between two lands

and neither made of land:
the lands of sky and sea.
Deep in the wind my kite
unfurls transparently.

It reaches far away —
this kite is quite a thing;
and yet I touch the sky
because I touch this string.

And touch the ocean floor,
that ache of dull content.
But the wooden deck of me
is the place of measurement.

Wave Function, Bondi

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
Partners
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