Wandering Back

i am wandering back to him
embarrassed that i lost his hand

i know its strange
but i miss my friend
naked next to me
in the car tracing a Montana lake
the ease is what burns him permanent
saved from the island a hundred near-freezing yards away
where in wretched water grabbing downward
a monster's fight we had
in hypothermic slow motion
and stretches longer than they look
we are our heroes, today
him next to me
warm and happy and naked

i am wandering back to him
to reconcile
what I've polluted by abandon
and hang it again from my collar bones
the self i left,
who's hopefully made it safe, to the trees

as a girl she left the pearls to their vanity
and instead saved seaweed from the crafts of men overhead
she wrapped it in her hair, rolling to the sea floor
you'd think it drowning if not for the grace.
its why she sits long near rainy panes
of windows sliced green by grape vines,
beholding all the thundering cards of Indra
she smiles quietly and remembers
her summers spent, in that reclined pleasure,
on Varuna's ocean vistas,
she knew different constellations from that depth, as
the night bent to her differently there, into
the home of the ocean's keepers.
and when i touch her back
enclosed from the summer thunder by the thin screen
pressing her nose
a perfume of salt dust jumps
from the seas which rock in her shoulders

i am, all these days, wandering back to him
nervous mumbled hope that he still recognizes me
from the cavern collection of shadows
jettisoned by the fools most men become.
my attempts to fashion apologies
of aspen skin and switch grass,
searching the back wall of my brain
for passwords we may have accorded,
end in song
of few lyrics
'i am not one of them / a fool / a fool / do not forget me'