47.

Life is long, lives are short

The heat of the day will stick

In my marrow like memory:

The t-shirt clings to my collar bone

Like fingers to a raft. She is

Ineffable, her lips an opening

To a world. The Atlantic

Pounded beyond these metaphors

Like stones. For a while even the waves

Were stones. Her eyes were the sky

And there was an end to it: I buried

Myself in her embrace but was not

Dead. The earth loved its seasons best

Its lowers wrists and eyebrows.