A Darwinian Preface by Douglas Livingstone
The crab, the clot, the muzzle or the knife:
patiently, the nocturnal terrorisms
stalk. Even the brave know hardly of rest,
aware a body’s little but a glove
stretched from metatarsals to neocortex
on a stiffening frame. A hand as strange
clenches on coiled lengths of fear: that old vortex
steeled by the usual mundane heroisms.
Your heart wins armour from confronting life,
yet stays unlatched, anticipating love.
Each dawn claims thanks and welcome, and gets blessed.
Perhaps the sea indeed did suckle you
Through all its prisms, its diurnal range.
There is not help for it. Best buckle to.