it would be this moment, the dark slow mess
of one body unpiling toward another in sleep, the longing of two
waves reeling in queasy parallel. Mostly it’s like you

never rested here, this body, your head never heavy
as sorrow, as troubled bone, never turned in my palms
like an artifact, gently undisguised. I shouldn’t remember

you as the trim boat you never were, this place
as a storm. There are errands now. Children.
On the second floor of the world, a tepid bath fills.

Some people will bear any anchor through
the endless flaying tide. Our ocean unraveled quickly
into salt—but listen, for a second, as we used to

—do you hear it holding us
there, scraping against the old
undertow? Minerals under motion,
rock inside swell—no,

shell, just shell, dry-littering the wrack line.