I

Down in the deep coast
the folk smoke and talk

about the girl who
wanders without a sound
through the coastal pines of town

“she’s got a hole in her head
and seawater in her heart”

The many suspect
that her fate
is the worst of all

“Boast she cannot
of home or hearth
nor offer any account
of her past pain or joy”

the many say
“Dearest Gloria,
hums and hunts
and builds and breaks

down in the disordered rows
of the deep coast



II

Gloria was born
without love or light

she was cast into gray
still warm from the womb
born to folk who spent their days
chasing a spectre

a refrain from the pain
& some grace notes of pleasure

they hadn’t a taste for guardianship
nor could they afford it

thus on the day of her birth
her makers made a choice

to cast the babe aside
just out of reach from a frigid riding tide

laid eyes on Gloria one last time
then turned away

On the shore
alone

tangled in veins
of sand and snow

Gloria witnessed
her first
sunrise



III

Though as fate would have it
the babe was soon found

by another orphaned
off-spring of night

hopelessly parting the sand

took her by the hand
to a house of god

but in Bethel
Gloria was not numb
to the torment of
displacement

she awoke each morning
feeling like a house
built on stilts
Ostensibly baseless

& all day wandered ‘round
hummed ‘long to the sound

of her steps upon the hollow
grounds of the compound

after she’d grown listless enough
emerged from the mazes of god’s embrace

A leaper eager
to kneel at the site
Of her own
Conception

Though early in her journey
she was just a piece down the road

when a storm front on the coast
made its way inland

& in the surge
winds gave rise
to cruel ribbons of things
much tougher than bone

in the hale of debris
Gloria was dealt
A mighty blow
to her head

though the gash
didn’t leave her for dead


IV

Down
in the deep coast
the folk smoke and talk
about a certain figure
free from the torment
of solitude

and though she cannot
remember or speak
she is an agent
that moves mindfully

undaunted by progress
and wants nor needs
the scaffolding
of memory

She has never known
nor kept
any permanent address

And never receives
notice of entropy


She was reborn
in a grove of coastal pines

& has since never bore in mind
more than one slice
of life at a time

At the end of each day
when the sleeper takes her place
Memories are effaced

when at last she does awake
her soft eyes fare her well
down in the disordered rows
of the deep coast