When the beloved turns his face away
and his sister gives you kind smiles.
When you feel yourself slipping into loss
and longing for what never could be.
When you have paused for the day
in a wilderness by the sea —
an aching roll of golden sand dunes,
unstitched and unheld by green.
When you hear the sea calling you,
as you once longed for him to call you.
When your bare feet walk and then run
of their own accord
away from the solitude of unequal hearts
and into the solace of untouched sand.
When suddenly
your body dissolves
into a thousand tiny white moths,
two thousand fluttering wings,
and you can’t feel your feet
or the hot sand anymore —
because you are this soaring, winging
movement across the undulating gold
and into the roaring blue.
When afterwards you have no idea
where you went, or why, or how…
Only that you were not you;
that Life opened its secret lips
And swallowed you whole…
if only for a moment.
