All the things I almost say are lost along

   the developing waterline.

I am at the threshold of the past tense

     where I collect heirlooms of the sea

and think about the shoulder I love, its every mark.

     I could swim for hours here

then resurface like a tidal island. Ebb or flow,

   come or go, solitude or loneliness.

Next to the water is where I’d like to become.

       I lay in the coastal sands

positioned like a looking glass. Nothing but the crest

   coming nearer

       to suggest a history of migration.

In this moment I think I can become a window

framing the past. I attempt this because I am made

   out of women and witness. Oh—

       look! The wave is almost here at my ankles.

The present is as ambivalent as ever.