Knox New to Me
I’m no stranger to communion with great bodies
of water. I’ve fought for balance
while learning to surf in the numbing cold
churn of the Pacific off Coronado.
I’ve napped in the sand at Okracoke
on the lip of the shipwreck-haunted
and bone-strewn Atlantic coast, where
Blackbeard hid his treasure.
I’ve waded in the summer-warm shallows
of the Gulf of Mexico, tasted its salt
like a cut lip.
Watched a pod of orcas spout
gray mist against the mist-gray clouds
at San Juan Island. Water below them;
water falling from above.
What’s new to me is being
at a place of endless sky
and endless water with someone
I wish I could touch
slowly and gently, the way tides lap up
on a shore, someone who makes me
wish time was endless too.