Sailing from Williams
Your soundings clash when now you reexplore
formative passages. She marks dross
what you deemed deep. Too near the stony shore,
your wakes crossing as you toss
and turn on countercurrents, you are bound
to run each other’s figureheads aground.
From what sargasso does this squalling stem?
What dim quelling turned your spouse cold?
What unknown tension caused her to contemn
the happy genius of her household?
To recast your vows as insincere?
Scuttle darlings both of you held dear?
Trending now toward the final page,
rest assured, so long as you live,
despite these startling airs that stir and rage –
begrudging’s dumb, the fine forgive.
If lonely, if born to be so, if so best,
still express the love you would divest.