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+---
+title: The ocean overflows with camels
+genre: verse
+
+id: theoceanoverflowswithcamels
+toc: "The ocean overflows with camels"
+
+project:
+    title: Elegies for alternate selves
+    class: elegies
+    order: 7
+    prev:
+    - title: Ars poetica
+      link: arspoetica
+    next:
+    - title: The boar
+      link: boar
+...
+
+| We found your [shirt][] deep in the dark water,
+| caught on the clothesline of sleeping pills.
+| Your head on the shore was streaming tears
+| like sleeves or the coronas of saints saved
+| from fire.  The burning bush began crying
+| like a child who misses his mother.  Traffic
+| slammed shut like an eye.  God's mean [left hook][]
+| knocked us out, and we began swimming.
+| Bruises bloomed like algae on a lake.
+| Your [father][] beat your chest and screamed
+| for someone to open a window.  The air
+| stopped breathing.  Fish clogged its gills.
+| Birds sang too loudly, trying to drown out
+| your father's cries, but all their sweetness
+| was not enough.  No polite noises will be made
+| anymore, he told us, clawing your breastbone.
+| He opened your heart to air again.  Camels
+| flowed from you both like water from the rock.
+| God spoke up, but nobody listened to him.
+| We hung you up on the line to dry.
+
+[shirt]: lovesong.html
+[left hook]: roughgloves.html
+[father]: angeltoabraham.html