Sail to me

across the ocean made from my tears—

formed by the hollow you left.

I built this sea for you,

so you'd always have a way back

to where we began.



Reach me

in the places I've buried deep,

the ones even I am afraid to name.

Trace the outlines I've hidden,

and show me I was never

so easily forgotten.



Tell me the story of us,

not through my memory's window—

but in the way you survived it,

in your truths,

the tender ones you held close

when night refused to let you rest,

and I was the ache you couldn't name.



Tell me I still live in your quiet.

Speak the moments I never saw—

where you paused,

where you turned away,

where you missed me

and never said.



Is there a portrait of me

hanging in the corners of your mind?

Paint memories with the palette of our love—

when no one was watching.

Use the colours we made together—

the rise of us,

blush pinks bleeding into amber light,

the bruised violet of our breaking.



Do you still hear me

in the hush between songs?

Do the lyrics still reflect us back at you?


Show me your wounds—

the ones left

when we unravelled

into strangers

who still knew each other too well.

Let me see the shape of your life

without me in it.

Come to me again—

on the tide of every tear I shed for you.

This ocean remembers.

It knows you

better than I do now.



Let it carry you

to the shoreline of our time,

where we loved once—

wild and unguarded,

a flame burning too brightly to last.



There,

we still exist—

untouched by time,

preserved in the hush

between wave and wind,

between what was

and what is now.

When my oldest brother, Todd,
came back for my mom's funeral,
he had this light about him.
His face was a poem.
Sure, he was the oldest, and he
had a healthy-looking tan from the
hot New Mexico sun, working
outside with turquoise, silver,
and bear claws to make
jewelry for the tourists, but there
was more than that.

He was an artist, and all artists have
a fractured ease about things, but he
lit up.  Something from the inside
projected out.
He comforted everyone else, we leaned
on him.  His eyes oozed serenity.

A few calendars later, when I traveled
back for his funeral, I saw the same
look on a few of his friends' faces.
His wife told me after the service
that Todd had gotten sober years before.

The tea
kettle
whistles

in the
kitchen.
Then all
is quiet.

A cloud
moves  
slightly

and the
room is
a little
brighter.

A thousand poems,
a million kisses,
laughter lands in
open eyes,
sighs I hear
in lovers' rooms.
sooner will
the sun be fading,
a lifetime
of hidden hopes
buried in
hillside grasses.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS