Breach, or New Year in Lesbos

The year didn’t begin when the cars honked at midnight
and corks popped in home after home, the gentle strike
of each bubble consenting to sparkle,
to hold the notion of hope for a moment,
on the tip of their tongues.
It didn’t end when you padded out on to your balcony
to sing a few bars at the still-dead, still-shining stars.
For me it began two years ago or more,
when I first turned my back on home, began my crossing,
eventually offering my body and borrowed savings
to the sea.
You can’t eat gold, or live on hope alone, but hunger
for loud, soft love carried me to this place
where I wait for the next chapter of my fate.
Look out, today, from whichever harbour
you sit in waiting, and see beyond the mesh of sky and worry
and what to do about money,
the greying concerns of the unquestionably settled
to the unchanging promise
of the sea.