university town

Up steep hills which crack open like pebbles

the green-black ocean wanders

in the form of a human among low squat

brick facades old typewriter paper

and armchairs subconsciously within

lost as all academia to self-absorption

hands in back pockets inquiring

of the psychological grass whether it perceives

itself to flow uphill mostly or down

Joycean that is to say or Virginian

Sorting stackfuls of family photos
most of which it plans to toss out anyway
between existences the brainy seaweed

soaks up all possible inferences
as to the ocean Whether literal or metaphoric
whatever anyone believes in whatever
way they believe it : it’s the opposite

Michael Homolka’s collection,