because we needed 
  
someone to blame 
for Foster Williams fluttering 
  
like a coal-mine canary 
into the fat, catch-penny glow 
  
of the dead. As a kid,  
I made the sea 
  
a hundred jagged-backs  
slumping to shore 
  
as a brute militia. 
And it’s true, some nights,  
  
the Atlantic leaves salt 
on the shore-side windows, 
  
but it isn’t a beast  
born of bottled night-sweat. 
  
The beast has always been in me. 
In the midday, there’s a depth 
  
to the Atlantic so deep  
even the light can’t touch it.