without a word and with your face turned away you slipped through my hands as I tried to grab you like someone drowning, your hair already floating long and bright on the foamless waves, and when the fine sand of day quietly trickled away between my fingers the currents led you away from me again, and you sailed out among the stars, slowly and without a word, like the day I salvaged you to shore through the heavy surf when I put my arm around your back still saturated with seawater, and you opened your eyes that saw nothing but the dark and maybe a ship disappearing over you, and you became heavy as driftwood in my arms, cold and stiff like the winter night when the breakers kept kicking you against the rock until the waters rose again and the current took you out of my hands without a word and with your face turned away.

July, 2010