We Know this Place

There is a dipping
dipping dipping
and a rising tide

Light slides from the bricks outside
and four o’clock
the gangplank
poised above deep black

The tipping of the pliable
a teasing bounce
The embarkation point, noon

A potted boxwood in terracotta
seems to keep the whole afloat
an object anchoring a body
whose last desire is to be cut loose

Cleave my chest open at sunset
expose the architecture within
and diagnose this:

A lusting for and leaning toward
light, of which we were deprived
deprived deprived