we will trip over poetry
before we have begun

did you know
that my hair blown about, tasting like seaweed
is the most erotic thing I ever known?

arms cannot be awkward
if they are true
or trembling, beautiful legs
no one could ever believe
we evolved from mermaids

love is not a beach. it is not
even
the sand in my shoes
because when I looked at you
you wore no shirt but
somehow I was the naked one

you know what they say, about sparks.

your voice slides over me like the tide
drafty and intense, then
slides back into the sea
instead of sinking,
we float, carried by the history
of a thousand winds

I was writing
even as the night stuck in my throat
but you smiled, touching hands
as a gull dips over the shoreline

and I coughed because my
hair was netting up the sun, which settled
too far away
to set me aflame