Jim Kacian

a few leagues

out of Ambon and the water is two miles deep and heading for more — cerulean — the wind sparkles its surface, the moon bulges it a bit, but it's essentially imperturbable by ordinary forces, certainly by the needle's slice of a kayak — the locals say there are things down there that fishermen haven't named, that science hasn't claimed, that many are bigger than my boat, and i believe them — but this trip is a circle, and the only way home is following the curve of the horizon — some mystics have claimed that god is a circle whose center is everywhere and his perimeter nowhere — perhaps they had made that observation on the Arafura Sea, out of sight of land, and ten thousand feet of water beneath . . .

sets and lulls
sets and lulls
the long day