The moon races by the windowsill of Beach Music, our house on the sea,

unremitting and vain in his chase.

The footprint lane drifted down the shore, but only followed me.

You went another direction, one the stars follow alone,

always dragging you further into themselves.

We meet only where the moon and world collide at the close of night,

where your shadow appears darkest in his stolen-sun eyes.

Yet we stared out the shattered pane and didn’t see

the end of the ocean where blue melts into green.

We saw only midnight and the haze of stars

on the body of waves. We didn’t noticed the gulls hovering lazily

over head, or the sandpipers scouring the ground,

only the tiny world of the window as we peered out of our cage.

We understand so little, the world doesn’t have a chance to tell

our wandering minds how we should see the clouds and the sun,

how the waves roll, and what water

should feel like as it beats us sore.

Where did we find such distance?

How do we lose happiness on the trip home?

What is happiness to the honey bee

with the taint of morning glories

still glued to his fur?

That night, the moon strove to beat us home,

before we found a way to cancel the bees out again.

The world of windowsill bodies left behind in Beach Music

on the second floor, in the salmon and leaf bedroom,

where together we understood mosquitoes

who drink to nature’s health,

the double-minded ladybug dreams,

and spiders weaving stars into their seams.