Thinking, Hiding, and Watching

thinking about that month, those weeks, a day

years shuffled at an intentionally hurried pace,

with places to go, no time to stay

it wrinkled our clothes and bleached our hair

we ironed them out and displayed less care

like the illusion of time inside a dream

our thoughts would cross continents in a blink

curving with space, under seas and over trees,

watching a sequence of polaroids as we sank

into a ball pit of yesterdays

and coffee shop queues

Hurry, hide the shells we found

last summer on the coast.

All along I've known

former inhabitants would return.

Cognizant of coffee table intentions

and ocean voice adornments,

the past will come to redesign

our broken life contrivances

We both sit watching the tide come in

for the last time this day.

Hours from now it will roll back out,

a little soil and our relationship with it.

We will be dry and free of the propriety

and moralism keeping us intermittently contained.

As the light passes over the horizon, kiss my cheek

and give in to the unspoken yet explicit temptation.

Cycles within cycles will press on without us. Without you.

I wait for the tide's return, fresh waves, eager gulls

and the silencing of what hurts me