Love is an empty port
on the shore of some forgotten town,
littered with derelict ships
and shipping containers filled with nothing.
You can stand on one lonely dock,
looking out at the horizon, waiting for the sunset,
and wait for your ship to come in,
but it never will.
You’ll just keep hoping that over that
straight line where the light sinks under
and into oblivion, that some faint
grey hope will slink across the water
to pick you up and bring you
somewhere that anything matters.
You will mistake a cloud for something
like this. You’ll realize you saw it all wrong,
but still try to make something out of the shape.
A lion, a face, a crucifix.
A little bird frozen in time with wings spread out
trying to take off to that same place
you wish you could go.
It’s not worth anything.
The longer you wait for this ship,
the longer you find figures
in those dusty grey collections of water
the less inclined you are to hope for any of it.
Where is it going to take you anyway?
Farther away?
The disappointments bring you closer to yourself,
leave you with the knowledge that this port
might be all you have. And when you think about this,
you know you could spend the years to fix one of these ships.
You could labor into the night with hammer and nail,
banging away on something no one will remember.
Something small enough to be inconspicuous.
Something that can leave without any
longing for what had been left alone
but still needed by someone.
But you know what?
It’s just too hard.
