my heart is an open dory off the Lost Coast,
batted about by the long swell:
unable to land, unable to do more
than hold position, afraid of the seas,
afraid of the shore.
the wave trains loom over me, each one must be
carefully approached: the climb, the sickening drop;
surfing into the trench, barely in control;
and the next glittering wall, and another and another,
and they never stop.
you haunt my days like a reproachful ghost,
like a wrong move, a calamitous mistake;
sometimes I fear your absence will overwhelm me
like a breaking wave, swamping my frail boat,
sinking my soul.
the next steep curling wave rolls at me, I feel its power;
the mass and menace, I can feel it start.
I row harder, bail, I do my best, I stay afloat;
I say aloud, you will never be my lover,
and I will not drown.
but when I think that if you died no one would tell me --
it breaks my stubborn heart.
-- GPL May 2007 D. A. Clarke