There's a candle flickering in your stare,
the look of a far-seeing sailor there in the
blue-green light of your sea-faring eyes,
a thirst that nothing but salt waves can quench.

There's too much water in you, the old women say,
but the ship-bells are ringing in your ears
and you cannot hear the words spilling
like salt crystals from their wrinkled lips.

Everyone fears you'll go like your grandfather did
(swathed in sailcloth, a coin on his tongue)
so they urge you to bury your longing root-deep,
but your heart is a thing without petals or leaves;
it spins and spins and points you ever seaward.

Your mother sits with you on the end of the pier,
hair unbound, tears cupped in her hands.
Stay, she says. Here is your sea. Now stay,
but she knows you are lost to the sound
of your blood crying out like a gull on the shore.