On the Precipice

In response to "wasn't naked, but should've been" by JohnFeddeler
 
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/214335-wasnt-naked-but-shouldve-been/
 
 
I carry my heart, sewn on my sleeve
and whether or not I’m gowned or bare,
it’s bared there for anyone to see.
And even if I were to make a vain attempt
to cover it, it would only bleed through.
 
I would lock my heart in a cabinet
and gaze upon it as a novel curio,
each pincushion prick upon it, puckered and dimpled --
tender, yet toughened mementos of failure.
But perhaps beneath glass it would only be more easily coveted.
 
The beach is calling. Melancholy breakers
crashing and crushing themselves against the promontory cliffs
they lure me, heart-sore, to throw it in among them
 
But just as I pull back my arm to release, it slips away,
caught on the tail of a howling breeze and drifting to the feet
of another lonely soul strolling on the grass.
Somehow he doesn’t see my heart [or does he?]
and simply joins me quietly out upon the ridge.
 
The silence hangs thick, but comfortable between us
and we walk together, he in his rumpled button-down,
buttoned down and showing just a bit of scruff.
Were there words? Perhaps they were stolen by the wind,
dampened by the impending downpour waiting to begin.
 
Crisp, prismatic pearls fell from the skies, soon descending
in fervent strands, scattering themselves in puddles beneath our feet
but the warmth of the circle of his arms parried the piercing chill.
 
The fabric of our garments dissolved into lactescent cellophane
and I felt his hands wishing to unwrap me from their constriction
or perhaps he simply reveled in the texture. I sighed, surrendering  
to this sudden inevitability as I saw my heart beneath his lapel.
Had he picked it up? Or had it simply found its way, as it often does?
 
Deafened, by the rush of blood to my senses,
the crash of waves, on the precipice--of losing myself
yet again; this lemniscate enigma I can never escape.
My heart beats brilliantly just beneath his throat
and I succumb to this comfortable paradigm...
 
”the rain was our prison,
and the sea owned us”
 
 
art by Jim Watkins Photography