Leave-taking

We stand at the edge of our world.
You turn from me. The wind blows
your hair forward across your eyes
obscuring your desire. I want
a broad band of silk, darker than
than pale green sea and turquoise
sky. I would unfurl it, bind sea
and sky at the horizon and blot
your vision, blind you. Because.
Because that is what my father
did. Because that is what men
do. Because that is all I know.

But I do not. What I want
is not what I want. Desire
is a tide that ebbs and flows
yet changes the shore it lashes.

Instead, at this, our last moment
poised together over the ocean
that will part us, over the ocean
I do not want between us, I unfurl
my arms, you do the same, we
embrace--hair streaking unribboned
across your face even as our bodies

Leave-taking

meet this one last time--then turn
our separate ways. I watch you
move along the path down the cliff
to the sea. You walk first toward
the horizon and the future,
then pivot at the water's edge.

Will you look back to see me
watching you? I breathe the moment,
then turn and head inland toward home.