Eros and Sorrow

lance every boat anchored in memory’s
harbor. Offshore, someone is moaning
in swells that unswell. Cacophony
of bells. Bowl of honey pelvis
rocked to pleasure, rocked to tears.

I’m crying after sex. Kettle’s going off
and off—the arrows in that
sound could puncture even steel.
I pour slowly, opening a curtain
in the back of mind.

Out the window, the diving swallows
thieve my periphery
with ceaseless flight;
           I came from this theft
of what cannot be mine. Not time

or rivers. Even my devotions
refuse possession.
Tiny, entangled butterflies chart
a constellation around my head,
circumventing the lens.

The oak on the bluff has a hole in it
like an exposed heart I want to make
myself small enough to climb into.
But trees don’t need hearts.
I’m carving a face into the stump

in my sternum before it splinters
to kindling. I’m harvesting
nettles from forests half-sunk
in my ribs. Marsh in mouth,
a hurricane wept into 29 tabs open.

I’d draw you a map if it would not divide.

We contain landscapes.
They do not belong to us.