Swimming to Shore By Ear

He was drifting,

told me to go away.

He wanted his horizon's hated eyes

to finally close.

I listened,

hands treading small doors,

water closing beneath me.

All sleeping fish by day

wake hungry,

and my stupid words bobbed,

birds of interval flight, resting.

The trick  of darkness

made them look like feathered stones,

each distant body floating

as if our feet might cross,

bare steps, swathed wet in white, 

but they were far away,

eye-black buttons spying,

slur of fish-tailed surfaces,

empty beaks diving.

Sometimes the hunt is broken

from under the sea's skin,

darting fragile

visions unify,

fluid spiraling down,

silver knives scattering free,

then wet wings,

air slapping cries.

I'll be alright, he said.

Just go away.

But I knew his blown-up soul

would pop-

flotsam of faces

saying lifetimes of

the same thing,

you're nothing,

the friction of remembered voices'

punctured hole,

his drugstore raft

submerging slack in rubber currents,

pocketing gulped air,

desperate legs kicking-

I knew determined propulsion

might save him,

but,

I also knew he couldn't swim.

So, I stayed.

Night's foam frothing

at the mouth of waves,

sun's tired face,

looking down, deserting day,

drowning sparks plunged,

spitting fire burning

in orange clouds.

You'll die, I said.

I couldn't stop the tides

from eating all they pulled

from earth-

the speck of him adrift,

a fathom on his back,

staring up

at stars gazing down,

counting eyes in each jaded evening's

broken promise.

.

Too blind to hear

the hours beyond

where circling vigilance

smelled tender futility's flesh.

I loved him,

but my sympathy's illusions

drifted sideways

past my claim for life-

the red towel spread on sand,

the shore I could no longer see.

Stay with me, he said.

No, I said,

I won't beg dying men to fight,

I'll love a coward's heart;

The same as mine, alone

as yours, I said-

but I'm not going home

just yet.

Lost in dark water,

I went under

swimming to shore by ear.