In dance there is a term; retrograde

Describing the arc of suffering

As the ghost of you lingers in my chest

A filament of feeling, resting its head in green bones

calcium for the night swimmer, I heard you whisper as clear as a bell

Will cut through water, hoisting ships from wreckage

I have lain shipwrecked on these granite rocks

Searching behind my eyelids for your presence

To lose myself in your familiarity, when all the world is strange

Every day has been a développé ache, comprised of chambers

Like a Seville blood orange; precious juice divided from the heart, awaits

I think if I could, I would open my mouth and instead of words

Oceans would pour forth

You were my 70 percent sea, my tempest, the forging anchor

Diving bell, pinning in silt, we neither sank nor emerged

Losing focus beneath waves till all I dreamed

Was the coin of you pressed into me, an outline more known

Than my own

I don’t say it often; but the sting is omnipresent salt water

Against the wound of your absence, all doors shut fast

Against any replacement, just like sea glass, rolling

For ancients to hold against sun, still the cloud of their making

On the surface, a cast, a certain temperature, the cobalt blue

Of persistence, imbedded within, replaces blood

I am filled instead, with the vowels of drowning

Where, letting go, I may, I may, find you again.

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