Not Her, Not Here

That water god is
he who must reply
Not Here at every
seeking shore.
You are that
witchy island’s sand
which pours through
me for all time,
each grain pure hole,
all dream. Fragrant
absence is your ground,
your main, your
preterit derange,
that distant
apple orchard
flaunting at the
moon those
pendulous gold
apples heavy with
sweet milk. Not Here
is the vanish in
your smile, the
dappled shape still
lingering, like smoke,
in every empty door.
Why is it that my
beloved is both
most known to me
and so alien, as if
the closer I grow
to her the further
away you row?
And how is it
that these daily
meditations toward
your ghostly
island grove must
perforce row far indeed
from the woman who
sleeps upstairs, though
neither I nor she
has moved? Perhaps
you are strangest
of all the numens
in the wash, the
most beloved motion
also most fickle, finned,
and spoory; and
as starry lover
her dark opposite,
least held, most dreamed.
Never do I harbor
or harpoon some
trope of you --
wave, shore, slow-
falling dress --
that you don’t
smile & spread
pale wings, leaving
Manannan to wallow
in his beer, his
tidals singing
sweet and sad
and low, “Not her,
not here.” By
then you’re ages
gone, leaving scant
yet precious trace
of our carouse --
a fragile whelk
beneath the bed,
whiff of tide upon
the pillow, moony
ache in the surf’s
incessant pound,
echo of our two
hearts outpouring
sound. You are married
to my angst and
woe, my stupid
greedy spleen, the
horrid obtuse tooth
I have for trying
to fuck with words
all you seem and sigh.
And what sport
I must provide
for you, the fool-
penitent out
standing in
the night’s last tide,
drawers down
around his ankles,
pecker swinging
fore and aft
and round and out,
dowsing for one
dip in you, one
slide, one splash
from balls to walls
of my river’s
falls to where you
are at last, your
siren’s blue slippers
crossed tight
behind my waist.
Poor for me! I’ll
never learn to
forego such dreams.
Some will greater
than my own
has me standing
here & staring out
beyond the breakers
and the marge when
there are so many
more useful stances.
Yet the tide here
I swear is warm as your
breath, & pulls
back on my legs and
waist, my chest,
my neck. Surely
it is heaving my head
back where you
and I surely began
some 3 billion years
ago when the moon
was born out from
the sea, tearing our
kiss in two. That
moon now thrones
itself between our
trope, you in flight
and me behind,
my longing hot
upon my lips,
reaching for you
here and ever
as I sing to such
silvery so empty air,
“not her, not here”