Night Storm with Sailboat

There’s the day you imagine as you drift, 
easeful, into sleep, shoulders barely grazing, 
the warm gravity of two bodies in one bed. 

And the day you wake to. Discomfited 
by a quiet storm that has overtaken you 
in the night. You pad up the stairs, 

pour hot water over freshly ground coffee, 
knowing slippage in things 
you were certain of last night. How could you

put it into words? That you have drifted 
away from the shore of yourself. 
Is it any wonder the boat you built 

to get here, with its tattered sails, 
broken rudder, and a compass 
fashioned from needle and cork 

sometimes floats uneasily in calmer waters? 
What is it about the harbor that makes us 
long for the sea? Why is it so hard to say 

to you this morning, sitting at the table 
eating breakfast, reading 
yesterday’s news, you are my anchor 

and I am once again unmoored?