Recompense

Set me adrift.

Watch the crackled paint of my fledgling gunwale

lurch from side to side, bobbing like a nervous buoy,

my hull blinking its uneasy S.O.S

toward a shrinking sun.

Do not let the rope burn your delicate hands.

Throw it instead, sloppily. I will heave it hand

over hand back into myself, this soaking, umbilical 

appendage; a heaving stillborn corpse

to dredge.

Let your lighthouse skim the air

above my head, where the tips of my arms

wave, limp and resigned;

your duty done.

When light from my burning frame reaches

you - a blaze across darkness, churning a

tranquil sky-

turn away.

Wash your hands in the salty brine

of your bitter content.

 

But when you summon me again from the safety of your

shore - gleaming, expectant eyes, shouting at the wind,

your hands covering sensitive eyes

against too much light -

You will stand until the blue sea fades to murky black,

and still until the rising mist ascends

to beckon forth your wrinkled brow,

and all you will hear,

across the rippling fathoms

that swallowed me in tatters

and spit me out again

whole - a refugee upon

another shore - 

is silence. 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

you are so damn good!

the metaphor is delicious in this one...

being cast adrift...like a baby on the end of an umbilical cord not sure whether to sustain life or not...that confusion of birth...like the confusion of love or even an idea in poetry...and where to sail with it.

especially like the last two lines of first and third stanzas.

j.

[Kristina Moulaison]

Oh my! Thank you, thank you!

[Lorne Blaine]

It was so many things at the same time. It was confusing, but beautifully confusing.
I'm looking forward to read it again. Well done!

[Kristina Moulaison]

Thanks so much Lorne! I appreciate it.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Yes ... your suspicion was correct. This poem is so me. (He said, now barely visible as he drifts toward the horizon). I can smell the briny sea.

[Kristina Moulaison]

I thought so.