The Sea Drifters

Transplanting my heart for a sailing boat
Harpoon the stitches to your harbour,
Anchored to the bows of our laced bones
We drink the honey from the sun

My hands roped to your mast, we stow love
In the spaces between frosting island dew,
The Shipping Forecast transmits colour frequencies,
Under our skins we are seventeen shades of red

In tempest waters
Dreams may fall overboard,
Divers trawl ocean floor for secrets;
No Miranda rights here, the
Only silence is the somnolent sea.

Full fathom five and seven decks to swallow-soft
Fever is the cabin where an open fire crackles,
Even Sirens get the bends, my Dear,
She who sleeps in water will never drown

Our limbs and souls outspread
Like sails of a rocked wreck,
They find two ghosts, but no bodies
Washed up on the moon’s tide,
Feather quills are our spine.

These bleeding hands have dragged rivers
Clutched rosary reeds and ripped rain lily,
Resting now between my legs in vespers
To sluice towards the sunken crypt

Cast adrift in ancient, wide and wild ocean
Twilight strips the gold from the sky;

Not so much dark
As starlight, waiting

Not so much destination
As lovers, waiting