careless

I tried to be careless with you today

-to speak your name

as if it hardly mattered to the woman at the market

-to linger too long among strangers

-to be late – to keep you waiting

the way I would have before

this love that came to unbind me.

But I had forgotten your touch.

-never still, always moving like water,

always trying to find its way in,

wave after wave crashing over me,

sweeping me under

-mast broken, bow snapped

butchered.

Oh, I had forgotten your touch!

sails torn, bleeding

its mere memory

wrecked me completely.