The Ship Is Always Leaving

I keep a sea inside the room

as if grief can be framed,

as if a round window can hold what would not stay.

The ship is always leaving.

That is the first truth.

Its pale sails are full

with a purpose I was never given,

its dark body lifted and lowered

by water that does not care

how long I stand here watching.

It moves toward the bright wound in the sky,

toward that burning place where the clouds open

and everything looks almost forgiven.

But not me.

I am here among the books, the shut pages,

the lamp with its small obedient light,

the pencil left waiting as though I might still have words

that could change the weather.

Foam climbs the wooden edge

like memory refusing its boundary.

The waves throw themselves forward again and again,

white with wanting, white with breaking.

I know something about that.

I know how a heart can keep returning

to the same ruined shore,

dragging its salt behind it.

Even the room feels temporary.

The lantern glows like a tired promise.

The open window at the right shows only more distance,

another slant of silence, another place I cannot follow.

I tell myself I am safe here, inside wood, paper, brass,

inside this careful little world.

But the sea keeps reaching.

The ship keeps going.

And the sun, indifferent and beautiful,

hangs over everything like the last thing you said

before you disappeared into a brightness I could not survive.