Elegy Surrounded by Water

Out at sea, each night

is long. Each night

has one sound I know:

the moon against the water

like your cheek across mine

in another life.

I am finding a way

to reach where you are.

I am thinking of lighting

the voice on fire.

Of lighting the dark oil

of the sea on fire,

each drop a note

singing the daylight up.

Listen—I am

trying to send you

a human sound,

which is bones

cracking to bend an arrow

back, a long whistle

across the field

of a body you remember

because it remembers

yours. We are built

to live in each other.

This means we are built

to ruin. Each night

I dream back another piece

of you—an eye,

a ligament—and each day

wake on the water

with another hole.