a promise without anchor

dear you,

you throw the lifeboat
but i am too far to reach
not quite stranded,
but not quite saved.

i am sure you’re mine
but not that i’m yours.
i wonder if you cast the rope to save me,
or just to see whether i will take it.
the way the sea touches the shore
without meaning to stay,
how salt works deeper
into skin already torn.

the horizon circles me,
identical in every direction.
a compass without north,
a promise without anchor.

the rope drifts closer,
then slips away,
testing if i will call for it
or learn to live
in the space between rescue and release.

sometimes i imagine the tide
will carry me back to you,
but the ocean does not return what it keeps.

sometimes the water is a mirror, 
other times a door.
and i am never certain
which it will be.

the ocean has no urgency.
it holds me where i am,
not cruelly,
but with the indifference
of something that has always known
i would end here.

the rope slackens,
swallowed by distance.
i stop looking for it.
the sea has already claimed me
in ways you never could.

yours, kate

(artwork: sea and rain by james mcneill whistler)