Though there's no boat the rain
waits among the waves
the way every bridge faces the ocean

then leaps into rock once water
used to tides and the stench
from a small stone wearing out

smoldering, half cinders, half
as if it was bathing her cheeks
over and over in this shallow path

remembered only as your shadow
holding down a single splash
--nothing drifts off, all these years

heading nearer to the bottom, sifting
beneath her lips for coastline
for seabirds then arms and feet and kisses.