Circadian

Struggling home,
gone too long
dreaming up,
in thick salt breath,
a young man’s
landlocked fidelity.

A squall festers west
boiling scud to sea,
graying
the dissolving
blank slate
ahead.

The vast storm
yearns to topple
a lone shaking boat
losing the steadfastness of wood,
becoming water,
struggling home.

I once doubted
the positioning moon,
ignorant to flicker,
to stars’ inconstancy,
fearing a flitter,
night’s dazzle parade.

I flung faith
instead
to frequent flusters
of the smug sun,
a sure bet
in the open light.

Another beside me
bails in pail-fulls,
joining craft
to white crests
to swamping gray.
We find our rhythm.

Teetering on gravity’s pull
and twist and turn,
a sudden discovery
of single cell rhythm,
light-determined,
dark-driven.

Arriving,
we leave ourselves
dead
sprawled and splayed
stranded
from voyage.

Waves of satisfaction,
undertows of ambivalence
lap at our coastlines
of hip and thigh
our beaches
of shoulder and breast.

The skin sands
sift away, eaten
by a slow rushing tide
we struggle to forget,
encouraging the sleep—
a swelling unrest ignored.