Depot To Another Form of Existence

Depot To Another Form of Existence

When the cape trail ended and I couldn’t,
I climbed from its edge—

light formed ocean
like a story being read aloud—

you lie in the crook of a lip-shaped tree
and read poems—

ours can be simple,
a soft contact. How everything

is on its way to water. The clouds, out ahead,
like panicked vessels lighting air into current

steady now in the stone-broken
alders, as if a pair of oars were at work,

as if the whitened sky was ready
to break again into its many bloody mouths.

Soon, I will dock. But for now, the clouds retain
their body, hold me in their calendar of rain.

After sundown, the seabirds bring warmth
back to their dark homes. Sometimes, I think love is like that—

the way birds find us
knowing, unknowing, knowing again—

Tor Strand is a Fishtrap Fellow and recipient of the Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer award. He was also selected as the 2023 Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. Tor’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in the Colorado Review, Salt Hill Journal, Santa Ana River Review, and Fugue. . He is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Oregon State University.