In the insomniac hours

she hears the incantations

of seers and shamans,

and listens like a child

at her parents’ bedroom door,

but their voices are shuttered

as if from the underside

of her pillow or through

the slow fog of another

universe where the spectacled

cormorant still dries its feathers

on unmined rocks

by a sea so clean

he can see through his own black

reflection to the passing

sweet eel—maybe

his afternoon catch—

all the way to the sand-

cradled bottom,

where he will dive, finally,

pulling her under.