Coney Island, Winter

Coney Island, Winter by Jessica Slote  

Once you have had about as much as you can take—

peerless blue sky, infinity of horizon

once the sea burning with the sun burns itself onto your retina

clarity of the horizon burning into your brain

(you can no longer say no to this day of days; to surrender is mortal and divine)

sun and sea and sky and reflections and vastness of infinity the infinite horizon

burned on to

the back of your eye

shimmering flickers on the cave walls

of your dark skull

once you close your eyes hours later

the majesty of that light!

lives

on the small-screen cinema

of your closed eyes

(remorseless unknowing living light)

once all that has happened—

you cannot go back to your small dark apartment

and pay bills

(lying in a stupor, eyes closed, on the bed, by the window, by the garden,

the sea continues its discourse with the sun and its blue vault and the sand).