Mere Point
Do you remember how we stood together
on the edge of the sea, you on your rock
with the night around you, I on another?
Straggling fleets of stars streamed low through mist,
closer than the sighing swell that floated
seaweed soft up shins and cold down ankles.
“Barnacles,” I called out loud to warn you.
“Are you ready?” Your voice was someone else’s,
quiet, and closer through the dark than stars.
Glad as we were with the dancing, hot as we were,
driven by the drone of the caller’s rhythm,
we’d pick a path down through the juniper
away from the skreigh and the hiccup skip
of a country fellow’s square dance fiddle,
and dared to balance on the barnacles.
We didn’t want to slip; we wanted to leap
beyond the sounds, beyond the lights and heat.
I counted one-two-three to dive together,
away.
Embedded in the breathing wave,
I stroked slow to go deep and feel cold ocean
sheathe my body’s heat. I wanted you
to feel the itching of my throat, and laugh.
I thought sure the jolt of my heart’s drumming
blood must reach you, unless you had not come.
I was afraid I’d explode, but I searched
you out from side to side with eyes wide open,
seeing instead my own arms, my own legs,
streaming clouds of sea fire until I broke
the surface into noise and air again.
I treaded water while I found new breath,
then swam back toward the shore lights and your rock.
You said you never swam with your eyes open.
I did, and I remember how I sought you
through the sea fire and only found myself
deep in the dark sowing and threshing stars.
The Worcester Review, Spring 1985