cormorant, n. 1. The only punctuation in a sentence that has forgotten how to end. 2. A black argument for edges, posed in a world that has given up on them. Holds its wings open not to dry — nothing dries — but to demonstrate that spread is possible, that a body can still insist on its own geometry when the sky and the sea have agreed to become the same word. 3. (Wellington, June, 98% humidity) What remains when a painting dissolves everything it doesn't need. 4. The hour before: the water was a colour. The hour after: the water will be a colour. Now: the cormorant, cruciform, wet, definite.