Without them,
What can the boat do
But respond
To tides and currents?
In time, you’ll hoist sail;
Rudder and keel intact.
You can navigate—
There are islands to find.
But when you get there—
There being anywhere—
What will hold you?
What will keep you from drifting?
2.
Grieving over something
You never even knew
You loved: that gloomy
House of your childhood
Where you were mostly
Miserable.
Sold now,
And tomorrow a stranger
Will begin to live there.
Lighter and lighter as we grow
Older—stuff lost, or cast off.
3.
We’re so near, but because of that,
Sometimes we need to shout.
We call it “clearing the air.”
We’re allowed to say mean things
As long as they’re true, or seem so
In that moment.
Also, they must be
Evenly matched—tit for tat.
And later, we have to take it all back.
We don’t do this for fun. We do it
When one of us knows her heart’s
In the right place, but no longer beating;
Or one of us notices his lungs are ok,
But he’s no longer breathing.
4. Prayer/Plea
Come now, come soon, I summon you
Who, alone, can burst this husk
Of numb that I’ve become.
And bring your jumper cables,
Your battery juiced with blue fire—
I need its zap.
I need you
And your voodoo lute. I need
One more of your rescues
Innumerable.
Heed this, my howled plea
That’s half-past last gasp:
I need you to
Horizon-happen, bringing the usual.