Such sun, such heat, the sea a concordance of curiosities—
crests fattened in places with weeds and jellyfish,
driftwood washing ashore stitched by labyrinths
and tiny mussels, too much time unattached or not enough,
pulverized shells packing the beach sun-spotted and gleaming,
gulls and terns, as if tethered, circling inanely, pelicans
in easy parade, an osprey slicing its dive to a glide.
Listen—the waves can't stop singing:
You are my sense of time, let me be your infinity.
Let us—between us—make a life, a lasting, let us
look and see love, and let's offer a new conjunction,
our names in union, our cosmos of words and gestures:
how you roll your eyes when I stumble with wit, when I mumble,
how we touch when we touch, discretely or insatiably.
It's April, the day is dawning, and this day is ours.
This sea, full-throated and crescendoing, is ours.
The sun, the heat, the bougainvilleas sharing purple whorls
along their climbs, the wind off the water in scherzos—
let's break the earth in half on our way upstairs,
spring every winter. Let's be zealous. Cleave to me,
be my ontology. Like gravity, our love quilts the color of the air
with remarkable memories of unremarkable days where
the moon knells tides, accomplishments, and centuries,
and the sea traces scrimshaw seams of love and always,
love and always, tomorrow and again the next day, as today
and every anniversary, every hour I am yours.
You have taught me how to give and be glad,
how to see that osprey, that driftwood, all those jellyfish,
to learn from scraps of shells full forms: conchs and cowries,
mollusks with closed mouths, tumbled rocks' younger faces.
All my life I've wanted through you this sun, this heat,
this possibility—love, the world is you. Marry me.