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. That world had no room
for holy things, for any small

city of flowers. 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 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 radiant field

of a body you remember
because it remembers yours.

We are made to live in each other
which means we are built

to ruin, and so each night
I dream back another piece

of you—an eye,
a ligament—and each day

wake on the water
with another hole.