There where times when we
laughed: your mouth parted
small oceans across its landscape,
etching caves into your molars,
if I'd seen them through that rocky grin.

I'd long to hear the crashing of your waves
again. Against a rocky bay.
To taste the dried-up seaweed of near morning
and low tide.
To be matted hair against
a rough wind, shallow
under fading storms.

I'll send smoke
signals and await contact-departing
lost words from frothy beaches

and still I'll cling to remember
the sinking tide,
the swelling dawn
and the indented shoreline,

like a scar across
charred lips or the smile
of a stranger.