Maybe enough light    •    to score a wave    •    reflecting moonlight, sand    •    reflecting
moonlight and you    •    spotting from shore    •    what you see only    •    as silhouette
against detonating bands    •    of blue-white effervescence    •    when the crown of the
falling    •    swell explodes upward    •    as the underwave blows through it    •    a flash
of visibility quickly    •    snuffed by night    •    the surf fizzling and churning    •
remitting itself to darkness    •    with a violent stertor    •    in competition with no other
sounds

to you
the view
to me

Memory near oblivion. Far death
the voice grinds and vibrates and trembles
the wind denies

Then he deflowers her, pulling away the greenery.
Then a blue vein thinning into a hollow.
Then it is the hollow between her neck and lower jaw.

The many deaths of Ambrose Bierce.Ambrose Bierce’s old house in St. Helena, California, surrounded by the vineyards of Napa Valley, is in good repair. Eight stout sequoia trunks flare outward from a fused base in the front yard. An hour and a half …