Uncharted
Are you willing to go?
Out in the Sound, the waters
will be choppy, the boat will rock,
somewhere wholly new to stop.
Fluent in the allegory of us–
our call & response.
Let’s do it.
I’ve never seen it so calm.
Your eyes watched the water
& my back ripple, the way
hours earlier you admitted
years before not noticing.
Secure in my grasp, I rode
steady, traces of the person
always braced for impact
trailing behind in our wake.
We watched the sun sink
refract pink among scattering
clouds extending their
spiraling arms. Everything slowed
into one steady burning lull.
This calm was a tender vessel
far from home. In its glow,
I basked in not knowing.
I’m ready when you are.
Let’s do it.
The whole ride returning to port
I felt your eyes on my back
without looking the way morning
sun warms the body awake.
sunset lover ( )
) day laid down beside night
while he paced by the bay
bridge spread thighs this side
all the way to the island (
) he picked stone and threw
something like a boy
who had nowhere to be
and i watched bare feet (
) bitten by fractured shells
of raptured mussels whose
soft bodied slow wanting
not quite returning to sea (
our sky) blushed pink
mourned orange while sun
lovely sank as it does
each evening into promise (
we) were not to each other
sunset lovers tending true
just a boy throwing stones
and his tethering shadow (
) wanting for more than form
would allow like how moon’s
begging light borrows
before then phasing out (