Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco

By B.A. Van Sise

Sunset: the opening music of night.
The blades on the roof begin to spin
in fast hot circles until the wind becomes
white and then invisible again,
and then the blue-black sky is traced
with the thin, distant-growing orange
line of time escaping too quickly.
Above the clouds are black. Below, the
water, black, and six sets of eyes
watch the churning tide to see where,
among so many black cold waves, a
Black hand waves.

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B.A. Van Sise is an author and photographic artist focused on the intersection between language and the visual image. He is the author of two monographs: Children of Grass: A Portrait of American Poetry and Invited to Life: After the Holocaust. He is a New York State Council on the Arts Fellow, a PX3 award-winner, winner of the Lascaux Prize for Nonfiction, an IPPY gold medalist, and is currently a Coast Guard Auxiliarist and Petty Officer First Class (IRR) in the United States Coast Guard Reserve.