When the night ocean retreated
Five Islands waited
In the sun
On carmine clay
That late June day
When bare feet churned
Tide-turned stones
On the strand
They marked my path
Far from others
When an eagle soared
To circle, with my silent heart,
The reconnected isles
Floating higher
Til we were both lost
From view
I knew why
The heavens smiled
I dreamt
I saw you once more
Sunburnt
Tears rimming your eyes
Saying, “Sorry…”
As we turned to watch on film
A story
I’d seen you in before
But could not recall
And when I turned to ask
Your name
You were gone
I was born knowing
Everything, save why
This knowing, a knife,
Sharp and unwieldy,
Was held at the will
Of higher powers
Over the crown
Of pithless victim
Hanging by their threats
Of the yes
Spoken to my years of knowing
Everything save when
The dawning of each déja-vu
Would break my vow again
To find me falling
From grace
Once more
Only time could make space
For new hope within fate
To race light years ahead
On paths
Both strange and unknowable
Past collapse, to extend
Crushing past, to portend
That the lens of your loss
Would make sense of its cost
In the skies
Far away, and immutable
How upturned dream and thought
Could imagine a spot
Long from then
Close to now
Where I was focal
When I stood in its light
With imperfect insight
And chose to feel
Blessed, and incredible
She goes down as the finest Tequila
Her elixir, euphoric regret
Both journey and destined amnesia
Though the former, I cannot forget
Sworn to swallow her beauty tomorrow
With an illness that burns like an age
Coming up, oft and on
True oxymoron
Both captive and free
I still choose the journey
Through this youth that I’ll lose for what’s sage
I was calm and still
The night I met death
My last inch
Separating the stars
That connected the constellations of my past
In novena
Overhead,
The croning of the fates
Paused
Long enough
For Atropos’ arts
To numb the pain
Of sudden insight
The threads to my life
Clipped from the fight
That I conceded
But there
Where loss last sheared my heart
I was bled into death
Undefeated