Ebb Tides

Easy to feel alive
with the blood hammer
pounding the brain
and that dark, rich,
salt taste
cloying the mouth.

If I was to
cut off this finger,
would I still feel it
stroking the air
in an effort to
express itself; reaching
to scratch an itch
it could no longer ease?

Once, I imagined
myself a river.

I thought of
flowing endlessly
toward the horizon,
carrying an ever more
dilute awareness in a
silent, spreading scream.

As if death were
not a moment,
but an endless,
protracted dream.