Bottles at sea.

I poured my agonies into bottles 

And sent them overseas

In streams

To him, praying for safe passage

And safe return.

Caught along with the silver swarming

They lost themselves, thrown down

By calloused hands

To meet the heave of floundering death

On wood from long-gone harvests;

On earth that touches

His feet.

Those dear hands

Once smooth and known

Take an executioner's mask

And steel the eyes

Against the reading of my words. 

Tipped to the edge of paper worlds,

They wait in tightened strings

For cries of GO.

They'll never come, for he never saw

The pattern of my letter's cluster

Spun deep in falling sand.

I dreamt up sharp sight

For the unthreading of costume

In my lovely memory creation - 

But now my flowing sweat 

Is burnt to drips, 

From fear that ink should swirl 

Unpinned, and knowing 

That his love, unpenned,

Was too weak

In my hot red mouth;

My black O of despair.