At the Helm of a Hundred Year Flood by Mark Daniel Milbocker

Even the Nile reverses
bursting the basted stitch 
of a hastily pocketed ticket
to tomorrow's garish premier

We all stare at the paint drying
like syrup leaping over hotcakes
our frame of reference loses patience
with the inscrutable creep of pegmatites

Entranced by recently ceasing supernovae
ever unable to grasp the evolution of a 
brilliance erupting into a shower of sparks
even the afterimages offer logarithmic delight

Our entire life a list of unrequited penultimates 
giving good face uncoiled and unclenched 
while the white of our knuckled complexion
smiles with the sallow grace of the sea-churned

With a belly full of salty cockles and cohogs
Braced by an astringent slug of sourmash or brandyrum
our genes leave the innocently gardened for epaulets
and spyglass aspirations of the other side
of bottomlessly fractal waves pretending to recurse
as our ten year old finger traces tadpoles in a tidepool
until the seasoned self stumbles onto virgin shore
to borrow a breath for when the stars sink
into the inky black of an empty womb wanting
for the bang was but a blink unblinding while the
roilingly lucid waters unfold to a faint film
and its captain rides the breakers to the wizened sigh