Once
the storm
predicted and prepared for
still
blew away the thatch of your house
sent water pouring like words with lament
and whilst
i was sickening
i thought I heard you row
across the expanse of us
holding your roof as umbrella
your feet bare and needy
opened my cabinet of questions
gave you a draft of why?
to which you descended beneath brackish waters
places submerged in lost question
claiming to surface
a moment where you spun in orange pekoe light
sitting stroking Gato before he
tested his claws on a tree the buyers tore down years hence
i climbed that tree in my high heels
you took a photo aping for the camera
and one fixing your sink in mini skirt
that’s my girl you said
we bathed because then you had a bath and I had heated arms to wrap you whole
the ocean of the past drawing in and receding
with it, debris of unsaid and unchained
time behind and unrecoverable
…
Once
i told you I was sick and couldn’t swim
you held me above waves with your will
till you decided I weighed too heavy
on the stitch of your skin to keep
we both
and neither of us
strangers and familiar
deciding and without decision
lost that year to the storm
as it set its pulse on our sundial and drank all hope in its spiraling eye
(there are many forms of love, you chose certainty over depth)
and once
i took a raft made of need and dragged the silty water
searching for what was lost
of us
who we were and were not
for you told fate you never knew me after all
an error of thinking … no more
then the storm left and all we knew was flat and broken
even trees we climbed were crushed like sad-faced dolls
as if an avalanche had glossed over the details
leaving behind a shiny surface and no more beneath
but dull reflection
Losing your fingers to frostbite