No amount of prayer to any deity could've prepared my pebble creek veins
             or my rope burned hands
for the 40 days you'd test my levies and flood my port of thought

Your pull extinguished
every chance of navigating by the light of Polaris,
            the soundness of my rusted compass heart
cannot weather the pull of your fingers in my hair

I used to sleep in my nail beds
before they were cut to stinging quick-

They say a sailor has no home but his letters            
            entwined in rope lattice to his bones