Pelicans

Where the river becomes a lake, a descent,
majestic and unassuming, onto
sheet lightning: with benign ease, the fleet
water-brakes, foam smooths to glass beneath
a marriage of power and tranquility.
Set in ivory discs, irises are
ancient coins worn to a sliver fusing
sun and moon, each with a secret door.
Their gaze holds the stark acuity of
the voiceless. Pilgrims more than predators
they seem, but scoop from shoals with bladdered bills
pink as baby ears, as their own egg-bodies
growing wings that will be hollow-boned,
snug beak-prong, puffy eyelids like goggles.