This dream … I dream of this every single night, being washed over the side of a ship and having the goddess of the waves, a shadow from the deep masquerading in the skin of great white shark, swallow me whole … for the last ten years when I dream. If I dream. I wrote this for my master’s thesis:

Of the three – Hart Crane,
Li Po and me – Li died
moon viewing in the dark.
Crane drowned at 3
and I was eaten by a shark
– or so they say.

It was true in 2003 when I was in Coos Bay, Oregon and saw a shadow in the waves. Even now I can hear her calling for me. I am a coward for living on dry land. Then I laugh because don’t we all try to run away from our fate? Ai, fate.