To a bouy

Displayed in ThornFest: Turning Tides.

I’ve been thinking I wanted to kiss you,

old friend,

and your laugh is the sand in my shoes.

It’s been too long for me to still miss you,

they said,

and spend salt on the paths that we choose.

Yet I still wish that I had been braver

back then,

when we really had nothing to lose,

except some subtle pride

and the call of the tide

was eternally prying us loose,

when I was like the lapping wave

of a trembling, two-tone tide

caught inbetween

the advance and retreat

with the moonlight on my side,

but you were not the cavern’s mouth

and I could not come inside.

Composed and pristine,

you were calm and complete

and repelled me every time.

And it might be then or never

now I’m rolling out to sea;

and we both might wait forever

until we can finally be;

but I’m giving my all

to a foreign shore

where you can never follow;

and they say it is easy

like giving in

to the cold dream of tomorrow.

Breakers will break us

and old bouys will save us

now that you are a Lenten dream;

and the children will make us

for the cold sea to take us

as we wait for the tide to come in.