[poem] Afterwards, Low Tide

            In relief's ebb
the shifting sands of selfhood un/
cover rocks of hope/lessness.
You once said we were magnets:
does that hold?
               I've learned, I think,
why some comfort's called cold:
because it burns. Keep it
in your mind's-eye's heart for just a beat too long:
you'll find it shan't depart without
its layer of skin. It leaves you raw.
Salt stings; Weltschmerz. Stretched thin,
stretched to translucency, I've no idea
at all how I might best begin to say:
Please.