The cloud of coral reef
wore down an inch a day
in the belly of the sea,
a turtle lodged in her brain.
The first year of her life was water:
reptiles paddled the deep river, a wad
of tadpoles nestled under nails,
and slipped
into the fault lines of dreams
as her horoscope was drawn
when light traveled to the moon.
Her eyes baked
in the iridescence of the sky.
She cast away the salt that webbed her toes,
locked her mouth to the tongue of the cave,
banked the brine
and hardened gills
into lungs.