Waterline

 The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.   --Erica Jong

I refuse to apologize
for wandering back into your life
a little lost, a little wild
leaving muddy footprints across the
floor of your mind.
So do not forgive me for touching your scars
and holding your secrets close to my skin.

I will not accept your apologies
for laying your hands on me and reining me in
pulling me closer in the wilds of the night.
For pouring yourself over me like a
shock of cold rain and
drowning the echoes of that distant rhythm:
the one that sounded like goodbye.

Was it a senseless risk we took?
Don't ask me if I care.

Instead be still and I will come
to you with salt kisses
in my mouth and seaweed in my hair
I will come with a thousand waves at my back
which may do nothing at all to erase
the unspoken line between us
nor falter the drum of that distant rhythm.

Let this be what it is, we told ourselves
play to the beat you're given
but when the time came
we changed the music anyway and shouted
our own mad and lovely songs
loud enough to wake the moon
before the tide washed it all out to sea.

Did anyone hear? Did we?

It is always a splendid risk we take.
I won't ask you if you care.



KB 9/2015


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