CALL ME BELOVED

What was it like to watch a man dissolve
like clay too loose to mold, a bad batch, all
undefined edges – did you try to cup me in
your hands? Did I pour out of your fingers?

It’s the season of my zodiac, water sign, ocean
deep, buried down where the light cannot reach
or just transient foam rolling to shore, back out
to sea, forming and dissipating and reforming –

let me be the beach. Slow erosion, not riptides –
let me be a polished worrystone on the river bed,
let me be braids of kelp reaching from the abyss
like fingers pleading, oh, to feel another’s hand –

not the forest fire, the new growth,
emerald blazing up out of the black –
turn this decay into something intransient,
just let me give all I can before I pour away