Give me back
the green glass of the waves breaking,
the moon-bound sea that misses nothing.
Two, three days more of living
in perfect inescapability,
crushed to bone by a sharp love
among chalky shells.
Give me back the salty winds
and the whole ocean curled up
in confetti at my lover’s feet.
The rock where he stood
as the tidal blood beat loud,
like a white leash,
clear and rhythmic.
Give it all back,
the foam, the sound, the light,
and let me take a long look at him.
His fadeless smile cuts like a knife,
I didn’t know it would be the last.
Then leave me washed, bleached, nameless
under a steel blue indifference,
until my heart stops beating, beating, beating.
