For S.P.—

Open ocean

falls closing into

the white past dark blue

where bound, in sand,

in sun, blood, we lie

unopened: five years

of love – still

it runs caught: every cell

is a blue diver falling

the volume under papyrus stretched,

its inner face bathed as in tea –

to look old? You look

lived in, like home

                                       till

the diver surfaces, volume

unbinds – till the page

cracks, read –

                             the ocean has never

opened –

the tea leaves its leaves

            (the waves turn over)

the sea leaves and leaves

            (almost in sleep)

we leave love