Untethered

Another segment of my substance drifts away:
Untethered, rides a boat
floats up then out then down again
into the bay
beyond that slip which held no vacancy,
emptiness replacing movement
unremarked.


How strange, how cold, this grief!
Silent as heartache
Restless as ocean
Heavy in the soft way of water
Permeates:
Slicks of despair seep deep beside each breath.


Now it settles, fog with textured haunches
squats and opens wide its sides which flutter abroad
much like odd green leaves in November
come to ground:
An old lamentation in pieces of sound
enfolds new Absence measured also in pieces,
silent.


Such must be music, a non-human ear
strains to apprehend meaning from Waste.
(It must be young yet, that ear:
Waste on this scale is beyond meaning.)


I mourn this death.
Tonight my unborn lover goes to grave:
I weep dry tears as only you will ever know,
track her distance from my heart.
She follows tides beyond where I can go,
bids farewell with no known name.


I probe the hole where last she promised:
Mute, immortalize this pain.