sea legs

Before the first gray words begin to gather we know we're out to sea. Before our gait began to rollick atop the bucking deck we knew the oceans closing in. At once awake from that dream of your arms, the glow of morning gleaming in your gaze. Now the world without you, the shifted wind blowing straight through. Now the day dragged like that slain albatross, the old forms always bewilderingly near once the words give way.

It is that gasp of blue, the brittle reach of green dazzling the sun into rolling sparks and shimmering fire. It is the tangle of the tall weeds below the rancor of the sky. The wind splits into swift infinites, tailing and toiling without end. Here there be dragon, here there be grammar, beyond the limits of this poor defense. Still amid all this tide and light, the count and the converse, the starlight and the stride.

The day is still, though the tall grasses bend and sway.  Always your name there near my lips, always each breath bent on saying. This press of familiar kisses, this rush  of ebullience and froth, the words each now found as they unfold. This spell so sudden upon your tongue, every line your favor. Such a dull pronunciation, this reel my stale report.