night swim

Buzzing in the night-space:
An exhale dewing on my front teeth
Below my outstretched palms, the thrill of it —
Waves and life undulating to a
Song I’m only now just learning to hear
And if I strain too much, too desperately,
Cannot.

Alone in the rippling velvet
My invitations lost in the mail,
Cast to the wind, ripped into
Tiny pieces I will chew and swallow and
Spit into the tide for something else to eat,
Holding no hand but the sea’s amorphous fingers
They drip like sweat from my sun-struck brow
Beading salty and burning on the chap of my lips.

Don’t come with me, this sea is mine
Her song my blood in a pearlescent shell
And when I drift like so much sand to the base of her,
She’ll lullaby me until I close my eyes.