Ulysses on Porch Steps

I want to remember the subtlety of approaching a place that was waiting for me

Craving the scent on lines perpendicular to my shoulders

And putting herself there like a jigsaw arrangement

Colored in for the night

As if a man had done something with his day, been noticed for his efforts

And welcomed for coming after that long walk home

Sirens and the seas, Cyclops and the bees of Troy washed away

Melting into autumn and three words bury the fray

I want to honestly believe as if the first thing I ever truly believed could rust

Then what will ever hold up to the will of the ocean?

I want to find a force immutable to nature, laughing off time as existing outside of space

As well and we are equals now: love, space, and time

Boundless as the porch-steps a man must leap, rolling stones and slaying meat

Stripping the carcass of sinew for his offspring and his mate, spit upon the fire and the weight

Cresting on his shoulders like a planetary wave frivolous to his universal claim

That sun, nor moon, nor nebula shall ever pierce the swell of love, untouchable

I am the weary mariner; drank gasoline over brine 

Did what I had to abide the sunsets cackling in fetal rock

Born again from yolk gestated in the warmth of solitude

Knowing existence was worth the sail if I could raise my neck as mast

Have her see the log from hull to deck and peer the horizon swallowing salty regrets

Knowing the haul of nets, the bodies in the shells escaped and returned to tell

The comedy of skeletons and how they died, sipping to the marrow in a broth of blood

See the colors and no one is drawn to run; but to embrace

These evening cloaks and midnight shivers; dawn’s forgiveness and breakfast’s buildings

Carried through and every human is a harbor

But not everyone ever comes home

Sailing, sailing, sailing