Soft is the water that lashes my skin
I shatter it's surface with sweet stuttering breath.
The strain of a discarded melody hangs dry upon my lips,
poised in flight with the wind
and my soul.
Bruised lilies beside my body sail
Bon Voyage! they cry, my loyal friends.
Their ivory masts flutter with excitement and despair;
their cargo is ripe with the scent of the dying;
their final ports are my hands and breasts.
O, my beloved!
Will you hold me, now that I am holy?
I have been baptized in the river’s tears
and I will wash ashore,
porcelain pale as my casket recedes.
Regrets are roses, bleeding crimson life,
silenced at last with the closing of eyes.
Catch me.
I go down.
