I, too young and too old,
I, weather-worn
And too rough-edged for this sorrow,
Stand on the dock.

The sea, unknowable, so endlessly deep,
Carelessly cuts the horizon.
It becomes sky,
As though there were no difference
between steaming on and heaven

You who are left,
Well-muscled, hard, bone-brained.
As you must be,
Reeking of the piscine oils and musk
are
Married, not to me
Father, brother, son - none of these

The tides inside me,
Ruled by the very moon,
The mariner's watchtower,
Are the last echo of your last thought,
Washed in the distant sea:
If I ever loved,
I loved you.

These tides ebb and flow and ebb and flow,
While we on the land:
The gnarled,
The barely formed,
Cannot glimpse a shoreline
Without scanning for your ship.

C.M.
September 1999