The Sea in You
by David White
When I wake under the moon,
I do not know who I have become unless
I move closer to you, obeying the give and take
Of the earth as it breathes the slender length
Of your body, so that in breathing with the tide that breathes
In you, and moving with you as you come and go,
And following you, half in light and half in dark,
I feel the first firm edge of my floating palm touch
And then trace the pale light of your shoulder
To the faint, moonlit shadow of your smooth cheek
And drawing my finger through the pearl water of your skin,
I sense the breath on your lips touch and then warm
The finest, furthest, most unknown edge of my sense of self,
So that I come to you under the moon as if I had
Swum under the deepest arch of the ocean,
To find you living where no one could possibly live,
And to feel you breathing, where no one could
Possibly breathe, and I touch your skin as I would
Touch a pale whispering spirit of the tides that my arms
Try to hold with the wrong kind of strength and my lips
Try to speak with the wrong kind of love and I follow
You through the ocean night listening for your breath
In my helpless calling to love you as I should, and I lie
Next to you in your sleep as I would next to the sea,
Overwhelmed by the rest that arrives in me and by the weight
That is taken from me and what, by morning,
Is left on the shore of my waking joy.
You can find this poem in the collection The Sea in You.
Life of Kim 