What the Undertow Keeps

Drawer by drawer, the dark crashes down.

The nightstand rocks; the empties incessant sound

like little bones thrown against the wall.

No pill. No refuge. None at all.

I count what's left of me: a heap

of sweat-stained silk lace. The crying need to sleep.

And then the memory moves through me like dawn light through leaves—

the forest where we walked unseen, wildflowers thick upon the air,

your hand in mine beneath the green glow of the canopy,

both of us bare as the day we were born, unashamed,

because the woods never once asked us to be otherwise.

She found it, bold against the loam,

a goldfinch feather, sharp and slight:

"Black as the grief you carry home,

but gold-lit. You. Our love's light."

At the water's edge we undulate, two swallows, our nest,

wet skin to wet skin, the feather tracing your breast—

lips meet—embrace, the slow shimmer of grace,

legs opening softly on the sweet, your secret place.

Then cold.

The room. The bed.

The ache in back, in hip, in ass—

time lost—minutes? hours?—

the dark keeps its own accounts,

and I am overdrawn.

The undertow takes what the undertow keeps,

and down I go where nobody hears me weep.

The undertow takes what the undertow keeps—

our feather the last gold drowning in the deep.

Armor shed.

Lace unknotted.

Silk, released.

Naked. Curtains closed.

I sink—

weightless—

water closing like a hand.

Silence.

And through the hush, her voice—the old caress:

"You are strong, though darkness falls."

I hold the feather to the dark, no less

than love—one glint of gold against it all.

A feather of hope. A love letter. Ours.