Adrift, Again

I felt your spirit leave my body that night,
And I knew for all my worth that you were
never to return to the fold,
Never again the binding ghost,
Pervadingly tacit, lust forthright.

A troubled appendage released from time,
Eight bells sounding, thus noontide,
Spectral in its promises,
Came to meet us violently,
Spilling forth like so many lakes
upon a canvas already wet with rain.

And waters receding, shore exposed,
I found myself a single breath,
Sputtered and sallow, pale like death,
Anchored tightly to yestern thought,
Lungs and hearts bourne through sleep
atop unspoken lives, taut.

But as I watch the hours pass,
Bodies pressed and moving through time,
I'm lost for nights inside your embrace,
Still notes drowned at staccato points,
Nets are cast, and we starve this sea
of another learnéd, silver thought.

A paper captain prays for wind,
But I, sailing an ocean without stars,
Have forsaken ports far too often,
Just to again drift among those
forgotten limbs, days in wake,
Carrying no cargo or passenger,
Save fear of land.