Waves

You and I used to gaze out
at the Gulf waves,
at sunset.
They’re so perfect,
you once said,
so relentless.
Their mother must be proud.
But where’s the growth?
I asked,
and the striving,
and the suffering,
and the death?
The relentless,
perfect,
pointless,
waves.
You shook your head
to let the wind brush your
hair from your face,
where I caught just a glimpse –
a soft shade of your secret sorrow.
Well there’s
some disappointment in everything,
you decided at last,
and so we watched
until the sun fell down,
and the moonless, starless night
left them black,
and unfamiliar.

Tossing, flowing, racing, gliding, I cut the zipper with torrents of glass