Hatteras Elemental

by Gregory Lobas

 

 the ocean ends here

               on a knife edge of sand

               packed flat 

      wind-rippled

                   I take in a horizon 

     hypnotic in its oneness

    a solitude I know

  even as I am 

known

                   

         at my back the overflowing

            turmoil of a continent

            cresting into

               crash-fractal

                   stretch and pull

               of foam white light

                       ice-blue-bright 

         Atlantic salt wind 

               scours the earth

                   scours the sea

                           sand

                           my skin

                             scours me

 

                  dream clouds in ranks

                      march beyond the horizon

                      to gather on distant lands

                       I watch them as a child

                        studies the striving of adults

          workings of the shore wear 

                       me smooth as dolphin skin

                  here in this naked scape 

                I go down easy

                  I am swallowed whole

Gregory Lobas is a 2026 Best of the Net nominee. His book, Left of Center (Broadkill River Press, 2022) won the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize and placed second in the Delaware State Press Association Awards. Other awards have come from the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the South Carolina Writers Association. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Susurrus, New Ohio Review, Cimarron Review, and many others. He lives in the foothills of western North Carolina and teaches a poetry craft workshop at Isothermal Community College

 

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