Nacre-Laquered Camera Obscura

Shades of blue
and blue and white:
a column
of ascending death
tangles a swath
of light, refracted
upwards as each peak
rejoins the swell,
churning, caressing
the rough face
of the coastal shelf.

Everything is difficult
to place, blurred as
in the first dewy waking
moments. I yell,
"focus," try to adjust
in the absence of bent light,
close one eye to flatten
the overlapping images,
but I am too taken
by my rainbow-tinted
screen to greet the chemical
taxis with our rhinoceros pores.