it’s a short run to be a long way
from the unbroken hum 
of static and errand
from no one’s wreckage but my own

a frigate has no choice 
but to look effortless
oil-less feathers and hollow bones
she touches the water she dies in it

running is a theology my non existent therapist
shouts into a wall I built for her
ain’t it all just vectors, different magnitudes
different debris fields, people, ledgers 

the last clear thought I had
treading water are words
for drowning slowly
and calling it a life

before first light the marsh was all scent, 
mud and sawgrass and cold 
that enters through the hands. 
we sat in the blind like two men 
who’d already said everything 
and were now just letting the earth 
finish the conversation.

he moved away that spring. 
i don't call enough. 
no one does.

most mornings I stand in the kitchen 
and the first hot pull of coffee 
sends me back to that water, 
that sky opening like a wound 
healing in reverse, 
all the orange and purple 
rushing back into the body of the world,
and I think how we never once 
said the word beautiful
though we were both drowning in it.