shorelines

now that the world will not suffice
I come here to your beach,
and watch as gulls ride shifting planes of wind
your flapping coat a shadow over sand

it is not time to mourn,
surrender in absolving sleep
all that skin had sought and found in flesh
in beauty that no memory can restore
or change this moment to regret,
the suffocating wave,
from which we could not rise –
but we have risen
climbed through stormy air
to find a shape that darkness cannot shroud
nor time's dissolving breath disperse

and here, where saltspray carves
its pattern on the sea, I watch you paint
until the light is gone