What I wanted to say

is there will always be days
like waves that threaten to pull you
under, when for a while there is nothing
but their spreading mantle of salt
and mottled grey, nothing but the dark
throbbing of that undertow you might begin
to mistake for your own pulse—
And I wanted to say there is no shame
in having flailed and cried out
as if in defeat, as we will again
and yet again, as if into the very heart
of the whirlpool that would drain us,
into the bend of the wave that looks as if
it’s poised to swallow the chain of fishing boats—
And we are so tiny, so powerless to stop
the water surging over our heads; and it is
so hard to remember how the current
buoys up bodies that have ceased resisting
so they might keep the vital breath—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.