I swim out a long way,
my arms heavy as cathedral doors,
eyes stung by wasps of salt,
lungs, exhausted, gasping.
Behind me, the darkened sea breathes
its breakers into shore,
the irretrievable shore,
against which the night’s flickering haze hangs.
I am here, and not,
watching the cold walls
roll over me,
their heaving shadows, anonymous.
Your death, a year ago, has taught me
that the distance is not so great.
No matter its length,
a life reaches to its end.
I cascade down, in degrees,
beneath the crests and troughs,
to the black center, where a forgotten world waits,
where I forget.
My hands, plummeting anchors,
fish tangling in my legs,
I am the current’s cold requiem.
The ocean is our stone.
Appeared in Silver Birch Press, 2015
