And I'm living with a woman now.
My partner is from Southern India,
and her name is Ashwini Bhat.
And thinking of immigration right now,
there's more human migration across borders,
across countries, than in all of human history.
And also thinking about the sea as a constant
immigrant to the shore.
"Immigrant Sea."
"Aroused by her inaccessibility, he
aches for more of her life to live inside him.
Watching the breakers, standing so close
he can feel heat coming off her wet scalp.
What is his relation to this person before him,
so familiar and foreign?
The way he searches out her face, he searches out himself.
Gusts thrash crests of swell, spring grasses twirl circles
in the sand where they stand without speaking.
She wants him to know it's all charged,
even grass positive, pollen negative, so when grass waves,
it sweeps the air for pollen.
He feels electricity all around as
though the wild drama of the coming storm
were already aware of them, foreigners on this shore.
Little sapphire-blue flowers speckle the dunes.
He wonders if he has let himself flatten out
into a depthless sheet, like escalator stairs,
whether in the end he'll disappear underground
without the smallest lurch of resistance.
But when her lavish face turns toward him
beaming, the corners of her eyes wind-wet,
he yields to that excess, he reappears to himself."