Love has lit me with his luminous sap;
life has smeared me with his amber syrup;
lust has anointed me with the holy chrism on his thumb.

All life is xylem; all life is phloem;
all life is ebb and neap.

You are my high tide;
you are the strange, warm undercurrent that arrives
on the change of the tide.

You are the salt that cruelly burns eyes
and tangles hair
on the incoming swell.

You are the unseen rip that lifts me off my feet
and drags me up the beach.

You are my untidy tideline, where I wait,
abandoned again and again
by the blue, outrageous muscle
that is the flexing, bulging virility of the sea.