I'm sorry when you cried at the pier when we talked
about death.
I didn't mean to go on.
Just, the water seemed full of it.
Death, that is, not crying.
All opaque and topped
with frothy crumbs of bone — galaxies
of it lashing the beams below
us. And I loved you then.
in a haunting way, as if from
another place, where love is a
present I merely write my name
on the wrapping paper label of.
I felt like a child
and I slipped through the boards
and I swam through the endless blue,
I followed a rope to where nets swayed
like spiders hanging on threads.
Some hopelessly tangled,
some drooping low,
others stuffed with pulping notes.
But your net was empty
like two hands, fingertips together,
and though its colours were waiting
for shallower waters, it was a bedraggled,
beautiful thing, sea-dust
flying past the string like comets.
And like that I climbed in.