Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Peter Campion read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.

.

The scalloped cliffs of Matsushima shine
in this hotel in reproduction silk-screen.

Sliced by the long horizon past Sendai
the sky and ocean mirror, spiraled by breakers.

The way apart from you I picture you:
conjuring moistened lips
…….......................……......you gently pinch
then thinking
………….....…...what would it be like to live
inside you, be you: sway of your swift walk
and thrown-back hair, your stuck then wending speech.

And no: it all grows nebulous, like gauze.

Aerial shot … night highways wiring
the littoral.
…………........That scintillant dark is all:
that space between us:
…………..……….............…...constant, animate
crackle of water draining off the sand.

.