I walk beside a manmade pond
With sloping walls
Sick with bloom
To cut the nausea of the carpet slick
They placed six spotlights
Dimly shining
Making amber of the brine
Black seeds and blinded shrimp
Held in the cones

I dreamed of true magnetic north
The water drained
Black boulders shone like greased backs
The draping skin
A muscle twitch
A fish would crawl out of its scales
To break the skin on the pond
To cut the nausea of the carpet slick
Instead of standing dimly on the wall

Magnetic north is pounding in my ears
True north is somewhere deep inside the amber cones