A VIEW OF THE SEA 

T. J. MCLEMORE

The city longs to let the world grow into it 

when we are gone. To be like a lichen 

on a south-facing granite cliff, a seam 

of coal, a coral reef in a shallow sea. 

I too like to imagine what I might become 

given enough time and pressure. 

A thousand programmers dream along 

with my recurring dream, light it up 

in binary glory to pull me inside 

night after night, hoping to make myself a hero 

in someone else’s story. In my dream 

vines reach up to seize the skyscrapers, 

pry out their windows and invade 

their vents, turning them to scaffolding 

in time-lapse, dragging at them like a kid 

hanging from her dad’s belt. I wander into the wreck 

wearing leather skirts, paint streaking 

my bare arms, passing things that have outlasted 

any use or meaning. A toilet bowl 

full of soil, turning waste to riches 

since the pipes are rusted shut. A PC tower 

as flowerpot, an oven as racoon den, the bolt 

of every locked door ripped through its frame. 

I climb story to story, salvaging what I can— 

a scarred steel dog bowl to mold into a helmet, 

the wooden seat of a chair to whittle flat 

into a slaughtering board, a hen-

of-the-woods sprouting from the rotting 

carcass of a couch to take back and fry 

for my kids and neighbors who wait 

in camp on a cut bank of the big river, 

over a slight rise with a view of the sea. 

               —after Horizon Zero Dawn

Listen to "Olalla" by Blanco White, selected to accompany T.J.'s work, below: