" …if I had assumed a beach it was because of that other shipwreck in my brain,[/]
where early early[/]
and from the start[/]
I had figmented a sandbar the color of gold,[/]
and a yellow shoal glowering with mist,[/]
and rocking there a figure tugged[/]
and secreted like a sculpture by tide,[/]
or like the raised effigy on a coin of some overrun civilization,[/]
the lineaments of its caesar’s profile swathed in undersea moss,[/]
the eye of a rubbed freckle,[/]
the noble nose worn to a snub,[/]
conquest sea-dyed pale dead tan.[/]
My father’s body lay in my brain,[/]
and in the same sea-vessel[/]
yet elsewhere on still another beach[/]
the body of my governess spread itself flat on a flat rock,[/]
sporting motionless;[/]
and here is the lizard of my father’s tread, crouching;[/]
and Palestine burning;[/]
while beyond, in the water, as they join,[/]
a book opens wings without lungs and drowns. "

― Cynthia Ozick , Trust