Your bow is all elbow,
a flank of forearm that is
supporting and simply cradling
my imagination
where a dozen or so
lifeboats hang off starboard
in case things get too much

I, captained by your sturdy arms,
nip up to the crow’s nest
for a sip of spiced ***
for a bit of warmth and
perhaps more—

a full beard that reminds
me so much of Darwin
I feel certain I am on the Beagle
and hungry to shoot some
lame birds one by one!

Your shoulder
where I can sleep forever—
come sharks and eat my catch
while I whisper poetry,
summon ghosts and
******* Hemingway,
whose macho act was betrayed
by his pain-filled eyes
and sensitively painted
one-word skies

You, my aching hull
in human form,
rocking gently as the sea
slows our progress
knowing we are
wishing away time too often

the working of the gyro
prevents my seasick blushes
we do not yet know each other
that well but all is fine as I see it,
your arms really are made of
shipworthy wood and
beneath deck, where I will sleep
tonight above Atlantis’s cesspit,
we just bounce off each wave,
getting closer and closer to the moon
but not yet arrived,
has sleep come too soon for me tonight?

I’ll rest and stretch and groan
like weary ****** do
once Surya helps me turn out the light




*—Yes, once my ship did start to sink. I called until my throat was gone and ended up swimming a good distance until crucially a boat came by and pulled me out of the sea. I remember thinking: I should feel more grateful to be alive. I went back to where it sank and retrieved a few personal items, then I sat on the beach a wept as if the whole thing had just hit me.

My whirligig giggling and jiggling in an ever gyroscopic balancing act of spotting the to and fro, does sometimes wobble recklessly, even falls down.  Revealing, revolving, evolving windy patterns and magnetism that spin pointedly upon an axis of gender nonspecific intention, it gets back up and twirls again. Whirls again, girls again, boys again, toys again, an accelerator from beginning to end, how can I be propellant and then, marry, tie it down? Letting loose these inhibitions of how such a perfect plaything may be too perfect, too divine a contraption is scary whirlwind to put my head around. Yet, this desire to go with it, oscillate and make rounds seems truer than any boxed in version of wooden wouldn't I rathers.  So there it is, to grace a pirouette with stable partner, might be a portion of the dance, picturesque, but more ensemble pieces may follow. These too add to the brilliant ballet, and we are in it together.

There will no longer be a coming in
Just the feelings I have stored within

Soon now you will fly away
Leaving me to my love's decay

I wanted you to have my all
But chains bound me to my call

If I could but I know I shan't
Cradle your love now so faint

Sometimes when you cut the ropes
You sever the ties you had with hopes

What you said was God ordained
Now you say , Oh God , I'm refrained

As love is abandoned in the sea of dispair
I watch it slowly disappear

And I know it will drift there for evermore
In the center of my heart's aching core